
Class ^L^^^t^ 



Bookie 

Copyright 1^^ 

coFVRiGinr DEPosrr. 



History of Norwegian Immigration 



A History of Norwegian Immigration 



to 



The United States 

From the Earliest Beginning down to the Year 1848 



By 
GEORGE T. FLOM, Ph. D. (Columbia) 

Professor of Scandinavian Languages and Literatures and Acting Professor of 
English Philology, State University of Iowa 




PRIVATELY PRINTED 

IOWA CITY. IOWA 

1909 



Sv V ^ 



COPYRIGHT 1909 
GEORGE T. FLOM 



THI TORCH PRESI 

CEDAR RAPIDS 

IOWA 



^0! A ^n 90^)0 



To My Mother 

THROUGH WHOM I HAVE COME TO UNDERSTAND SOME- 
THING OF THE HEROIC WOMANHOOD EXEMPLIFIED IN THE 
LIVES OF OUR PIONEER MOTHERS, THIS VOLUME IS 
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 



FOREWORD 

This volume is intended to present the progress 
of inunigration from Norway to this country from 
the beginning down through what may be termed the 
first period of settlement. It is possible that I may 
at some future time return to these studies to trace 
the further growth of the Scandinavian element and 
its place and influence in American life. 

Four years ago I contributed an article to The 
Iowa Journal of History and Politics upon ''The 
Scandinavian Factor in the American Population," 
in which I discussed briefly the causes of emigration 
from the Northern countries. This article forms the 
basis of chapters VI- VIII of the present volume, 
much new evidence from later years having, however, 
been added. In a subsequent issue of the same Jour- 
nal I published an article on "The Coming of the 
Norwegians to Iowa," which is embodied in part in 
chapters III-V of this volume. The remaining 
thirty-six chapters are new. During the last three 
summers I have continued my investigation of that 
part of the subject which deals with the immigration 
movement. This book represents the results of that 
investigation down to 1848. 

For invaluable assistance in the investigation I 
gratefully acknowledge indebtedness to the numer- 
ous pioneers whom, from time to time, I have inter- 
viewed and who so kindly have given the aid sought. 



8 FOREWORD 

I wish to thank, also, several persons who generously 
have accepted the task of personally gathering pion- 
eer data for certain localities. For such help I owe 
a debt of gratitude to the following persons : J. "W. 
Johnson, Racine, Wisconsin ; Reverend A. Jacobson, 
Decorah, Iowa; Reverend G. A. Larsen, Clinton, 
Wisconsin; Henry Natesta, Clinton, Wisconsin; Rev. 
0. J. Kvale, Orf ordville, Wisconsin ; Rev. J. Nordby, 
Lee, Illinois; Dr. N. C. Evans, Mt. Horeb, Wiscon- 
sin; M. J. Engebretson, Gratiot, Wisconsin; Dan K. 
Anderson and wife, Woodford, Wisconsin; Ole Ja- 
cobson, Elk Horn, Wisconsin ; Samuel Sampson, Rio, 
Wisconsin; T. M. Newton, Grinnell, Iowa; Harvey 
Arveson, Wliitewater, Wisconsin; and Reverend 
Helge Hoverstad, Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. My thanks 
are also due to Reverend G. G. Krostu of Koshkon- 
ong Parsonage for having placed at my disposal the 
Koshkonong Church Register from 1844-1850 ; as also 
for verifying my copy of it in some cases of names 
and dates; for the privilege accorded me of using 
these so precious documents I am most grateful. 
Reverend K. A. Kasberg of Spring Grove, Minne- 
sota, has given me certain important data on part 
of the immigration to East Koshkonong in 1842, and 
similarly N. A. Lie of Deerfield, Wisconsin, for immi- 
gration from Voss in 1838-1844, and Mr. Elim 
Ellingson and wife of Capron, Illinois, on the found- 
ers of the Long Prairie Settlement. Many others 
might be mentioned who have given valuable assist- 
ance by letter and otherwise in the course of the 
investigation, and to whom I owe much. Finally, I 



FOREWORD 9 

wish to thank Dr. N. C. Evans of Mt. Horeb, Wis- 
consin, for the loan of Cyclopedia of Wisconsin 
(1906) and Illustreret Kirkehistorie (Chicago, 1898) ; 
Mr. 0. N. Falk of Stoughton, Wisconsin, for loaning 
me Billed-Magazin for 1869-1870, and my brother, 
Martin 0. Flom, of Stoughton, for securing for my 
use several Wisconsin Atlases and a copy of The 
Biographical Review of Dane County (1893). 

Of published works on Norwegian immigration 
which I have found especially useful are to be men- 
tioned S. Nilsen's Billed-Magazin on causes of 
immigration and the earliest immigrants from Tele- 
marken and Numedal; R. B. Anderson's First 
Chapter on Norwegian Immigration for the sloopers 
of 1825, and their descendants; Strand's History of 
the Norwegians in Illinois (1905) for the Norwegians 
in Chicago; H. L. Skavlem's sketch of Scandina- 
vians in the Early Days of Rock County, Wisconsin, 
Normandsforbundet for February, 1909, and several 
articles in Symra, 1905-1908. I must also mention a 
most valuable series of articles on the Rock Prairie 
Settlement, Rock County, Wisconsin, which ap- 
peared in Amerika in 1906. (See further the Bib- 
liography at the end of this volume.) 

No one who has never been engaged in a similar 
undertaking can have any conception of the difficulty 
of the task and the labor involved in the collecting, 
weighing and sifting of the vast amount of detail 
material. I have tried to write a work which shall 
be correct as to details and historically reliable. 
That errors have crept in I doubt not. I shall be 



10 FOREWORD 

grateful to the reader who may discover such errors 
if he will call my attention to them. 

Finally, I wish to say that I have attempted 
nothing complete with reference to the personal 
sketches of the earliest pioneers ; this was manifestly 
impossible. I have thought also that this was not 
here called for except in cases of founders of settle- 
ments, and even here I have sometimes lacked the 
full facts. To many it will also undoubtedly seem 
that the early days of the church and the founding 
of congregations should have received more atten- 
tion. I can only say that this volume deals spe- 
cifically with the causes, course and progress of 
Norwegian immigration and that this plan precluded 
a discussion in this volume of religious and educa- 
tional movements among the pioneers, or of social 
questions, occupations, public service, and like 
topics. The work thus aims to keep only what the 
title promises, and I hope it will be found to be a real 
contribution to history within the scope marked out 
for it. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction 15 

Chapter I. Norway. Population, Resources, Pur- 
suits of her People, Social Conditions, Laws 
and Institutions ...... 18 

Chapter II. Emigration from Norway "^ . . 27 

Chapter III. The Earliest Immigrants from Nor- 
way, 1620 to 1825 35 

Chapter IV. The Sloopers of 1825. The First 
Norwegian Settlement in America. Kleng 
Peerson . 45 

Chapter V. The Founding of the Fox River Set- 
tlement. Personal Notes on Some of the 
Founders 55 

Chapter VI. Causes of Emigration from Norway. 

General Factors, Economic .... 64 

Chapter VII. Causes of Emigration Continued. 
Special Factors. Religion as a Cause. Emi- 
gration Agents ...... 73 

Chapter VIII. Causes of Emigration Continued. 
The Influence of Successful Pioneers. "Amer- 
ica-Letters." The Spirit of Adventure. Sum- 
mary 80 

Chapter IX. Growth of the Fox River Settlement. 
The Immigration of 1836. Further Personal 
Sketches 89 

Chapter X. The Year 1837 Continued. The Sail- 
ing of Aegir 97 

Chapter XI. Beaver Creek. Ole Rynning . 102 



12 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Chapter XII. Some of the Immigrants of 1837. 
The First Pathfinders from Numedal and Tele- 
marken ........ 108 

Chapter XIII. Ansten Nattestad's Return to Nor- 
way in 1838. The Year 1839. Immigration 
Assumes Larger Proportions. The Course of 
Settlement Changes 116 

Chapter XIV. Shelby County, Missouri. Ansten 
Nattestad's Return from Norway in 1839. The 
Founding of the Jefferson Prairie Settlement 
in Rock Coimty, Wisconsin .... 125 

Chapter XV. The Earliest White Settlers on 
Rock and Jefferson Prairies. The Founding of 
the Rock Prairie Settlement. The Earliest Set- 
tlers on Rock Prairie ..... 135 

Chapter XVI, The Rock Run Settlement. Other 

Immigrants of 1839. The Immigration of 1840 . 147 

Chapter XVII. The Settlement of Norway and 
Raymond Townships, Racine County. The 
Founders of the Settlement. Immigration to 
Racine County in 1841-1842 ... 155 

Chapter XVIII. The Establishment of the Kosh- 

konong Settlement in Dane County, Wisconsin 164 

Chapter XIX. The Settling of Koshkonong by 
Immigrants from Numedal and Stavanger in 
1840. Other Accessions in 1841-1842 . . 172 

Chapter XX. New Accessions to the Koshkonong 
Settlement in 1840-1841. The Growth of the 
Settlement in 1842 180 

Chapter XXI. The First Norwegian Settlement 

in Iowa, at Sugar Creek in Lee County . 190 

Chapter XXII. The Earliest Norwegian Settlers 
at Wiota, La Fayette County, and Dodgeville, 
Iowa County, Wisconsin .... 198 



CONTENTS 13 

Chapter XXIII. Growth of the Jefferson Prairie 
Settlement from 1841 to 1845. The First Nor- 
wegian Land Owners in Rock Comity . . 204 

Chapter XXIV. Immigration to Rock Prairie 
from Numedal and Land in 1842 and Subse- 
quent Years . 211 

Chapter XXV. Immigration from Hallingdal, 
Norway, to Rock Prairie from 1843 to 1848. 
Continued Immigration from Numedal. Other 
Early Accessions 216 

Chapter XXVI. Economic Conditions of Immi- 
grants. Cost of Passage. Course of the Jour- 
ney. Duration of the Journey ... 221 

Chapter XXVII. Norwegians in Chicago, 1840- 
1845. A Vossing Colony. Some Early Set- 
tlers in Chicago from Hardanger . . 230 

Chapter XXVIII. The Earliest Norwegian Set- 
tlers in the Township of Pleasant Spring, Dane 
County, Wisconsin 241 

CHiVPTER XXIX. The First Norwegian Settlers 
in the Townships of Dunkirk, Dunn, and Cot- 
tage Grove, in Dane County, Wisconsin . 249 

Chapter XXX. The Expansion of the Koshkon- 
ong Settlement into Sumner and Oakland 
Townships in Jefferson County. Increased 
Immigration from Telemarken. New Settlers 
from Kragero, Drammen and Numedal . 255 

Chapter XXXI. The Coming of the First Large 
Party of Immigrants from Sogn. New Acces- 
sions from Voss 265 

Chapter XXXII. Long Prairie in Boone County, 

Illinois; A Sogning Settlement . . . 272 

Chapter XXXIII. The Growth of the Racine 

County (Muskego) Settlement, 1843-1847. 278 



r / 



14 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Chapter XXXIV. The Heart Prairie Settlement 

in Walworth Co., Wis. Skoponong. Pine Lake 289 

CHiVPTER XXXV. The Earliest Norwegian Settlers 
at Sugar Creek, Walworth County, Wisconsin. 
The Influx from Land, Norway, to Wiota and 
Vicinity, 1844-1852 300 

Chapter XXXVI. Continued Immigration from 
Aurland, Sogn, to Koshkonong. The Arrival 
of Settlers from Vik Parish, Sogn, in 1845 . 305 

Chapter XXXVII. Kirkeregister. Church Reg- 
ister of East Koshkonong, West Koshkonong 
and Liberty Prairie Congregations as Consti- 
tuted During the Years of Reverend J. W. C. 
Dietrichson 's Incumbency of the Pastorate 
from 1844 to 1850, and as Recorded by Rever- 
end Dietrichson ...... 314 

Chapter XXXVIII. The Founding of the Nor- 
wegian Settlements of Norway Grove, Spring 
Prairie and Bonnet Prairie in Dane and Col- 
umbia Counties, Wisconsin .... 331 

Chapter XXXIX. Blue Mounds in Western Dane 

County, Wisconsin ..... 340 

Chapter XL. The Hardanger Settlement in Lee 
and De Kalb Counties, Illinois. Big Grove 
in Kendall County, and Nettle Creek in Grundy 
County, Illinois 350 

Chapter XLI. The First Norwegian Pioneers in 

Northeastern Iowa 362 

Chapter XLII. Survey of Immigration from Nor- 
way to America. Conclusion . . . 375 

Appendix I 383 

Appendix II 386 

Bibliography 387 

Index 389 



INTRODUCTION 

In this volume I shall aim to give an account of 
the Norwegian immigration movement from 1825 
down to 1848. Thereupon will follow a brief survey 
of the course of the movement and the growth of the 
settlements founded here in that period. In the in- 
troductory pages I shall discuss briefly individual 
immigration from Norway from its earliest known 
beginnings down to 1825. 

Immigration from Norway resulted in the found- 
ing of settlements in New York, Illinois, Wisconsin 
and Iowa successively; I shall try to give a correct 
narrative of the beginnings and the growth of these 
settlements. In this part of the work I shall stress 
the oldest and largest settlements in Southern Wis- 
consin and Northern Illinois, for the relation of 
these to the whole movement and later colonization of 
the Northwestern States by the Norwegians is one 
of especial importance. I shall treat somewhat fully 
of the causes of emigration, of the growth of the 
movement, and the part in it that each district or 
province in Norway has played. The leaders from 
each district and the founders of the settlements 
here will be named and in many cases, sketches will 
be given of their lives. Such questions as the course 
of the movement in Norway, the cost of the voyage, 
the course of the journey, early wage conditions, 
the economic conditions of the immigrants, the 



16 INTRODUCTION 

geographical trend of settlement, will also be con- 
sidered, and approximately complete lists of the ac- 
cessions in each settlement for the first few years 
will be given. The limits of this volume, how- 
ever, will preclude the treatment of social or 
cultural questions, or to take more than the briefest 
notice of the pursuits and occupations of the Nor- 
wegian-American and his contribution to American 
life. I hope to be able to treat elsewhere, later, of 
some of these problems. 

The story of the immigrant settler is one that 
is well worth the telling; it is one that is justly re- 
ceiving increased attention in recent years. I be- 
lieve that the writer of American history will, in the 
future, pay far greater attention than he has in the 
past to the immigrant pioneer as a factor in the de- 
velopment of the nation. There are in America to- 
day about one million people of Norwegian birth, or 
Norwegian parentage. That is, there are nearly 
half as many of that nationality in America as in 
Norway itself. The transplanting of so large a pro- 
portion of a race from the land to which it is rooted 
by birth and by its history is indeed remarkable. 

Various European peoples have contributed to 
the growth of the American population; they have 
each given something to the sum total of present 
American life and in some measure helped to 
shape American institutions. As a people Amer- 
ica is yet in the formative period; racially, 
at least, one-half of the population is not 



INTRODUCTION 17 

Anglo-Saxon. It is by the amalgamation of 
all its ethnic factors that the future American people 
will be evolved. The contribution that each foreign 
element will make to that evolution will be deter- 
mined by the civilization, which each represents as 
its racial heritage, the culture which, in the course of 
its history, each has evolved as a people and a nation. 
As the true student of American history takes note 
of these things in the future, the significance of the 
foreign factor in the growth and the upbuilding of 
the country will receive its just recognition. 

We of Norse blood, but American birth, if we are 
true to the best that is in us, cannot fail to have an 
interest in the trials and the achievements of the 
pioneer fathers. We must recognize the true hero- 
ism of the men and women who braved the hardships 
and suffered the privations of frontier life in the 
thirties, the forties and the fifties. The part that 
the pioneers of those days played in the development 
of the Northwest was a great one ; in comparison 
with it that of the present generation is wholly in- 
significant. It is to the memory of those pioneers, 
in recognition of their true worth, that this record 
of their coming is dedicated. 



CHAPTER I 

Nonvay: Population, Resources, Pursuits of her 
People, Social Conditions, Laws and Institutions. 

Norway is, as we know, a long and narrow strip 
of country in the west of the Scandinavian Penin- 
sula, stretching through thirteen degrees of latitude, 
and in the north, extending almost three hundred 
miles into the arctic zone. Nearly a third of the 
entire country ^ is the domain of the midnight sun, 
where summer is the season of daylight and winter 
is one long unbroken night. Even in Southern Nor- 
way total darkness is unknown in summer, the night 
being merely a period of twilight. In Christiania 
the nights are light from April twentieth to the third 
week in August, in Trondhjem, a week more at 
either end. In the latter city there is broad day- 
light at midnight from May twenty-third to July 
twentieth. Correspondingly there is a period of 
continuous darkness in the extreme north. Thus at 
Tromso the sun is not visible between the twenty- 
sixth of November and the sixteenth day of Janu- 
ary. The long night is therefore short as compared 
with the long day of summer. Climatically '^Iso, 
Norway is naturally a land of extremes, extent^mg, 
as it does, over such a vast area north and south. 
Yet the populous portion of the country, the south- 
ern two-thirds, is not appreciably colder than the 

1 Or over thirty-eight thousand square miles. 



NORWAY: POPULATION, ETC. 19 

State of Iowa and the southern half of Wisconsin 
and Minnesota. The winter is severest in the great 
inland valleys. Gudbrandsdalen, Valders and Hal- 
lingdal, but especially in Osterdalen. In the last- 
named valley the lowest temperature ever observed 
has been recorded, namely, 50°, mercury often hav- 
ing been frozen. ^ The winter is also excessively 
long in these valleys; in Fjeldberg and Jerkin in 
the Dovre Mountains the temperature is below the 
freezing point two hundred days in the year. In 
the south and in the west coast-districts the climate 
is more uniform and more temperate. Northern 
Norway, with its gulf stream coast, presents the 
same general climatic conditions as Western and 
Southern Norway ; the inland region of extreme cold 
is limited because of the very limited inland area, 
which also is very sparsely populated. ^ 

2 Compare Bjomson's account of the temperature at Kvikne in 
his autobiographical sketch, Blakken. 

3 The statistical and much of the other matter in this chapter has 
been taken from Norway, Official Publication for the Paris Exhibition, 
1900, published at Christiania. But I am also indebted to the stately 
publication by Norwegian authors and artists entitled Norge i det 
nittende Aarhundrede, 2 volumes, large folio, 436 and 468 pages. 
Christiania, 1900. The scholars who published this are W. C. Brogger, B. 
Getz, A. N. Kjaer, Moltke Moe, Bredo Morgenstjerne, Gerhard Munthe, 
Frith 'rf Nansen, Eilif Peterssen, Nordahl Eolfsen, J. E. Sars, Gustav 
Str and E. Werenskjold. The editor in chief for the texts is 
Noraahl Eolfsen, for the illustrations E. Werenskjold. There is a 
large staff of collaborators, each article is prepared by a specialist; 
the whole is a rare piece of book-making. The printers are Alb. 
Cammermeyers Forlag, Christiania. I wish to mention also especially 
here Christensen's Det nittende Aarhundredes Kulturkamp i Norge, 
Christiania, 1905. 



20 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

The population of Norway'' is very unevenly 
distributed, the north being rather thinly settled. The 
area of Norway is 124,495 square miles, or somewhat 
more than that of Wisconsin and Illinois together. 
About four per cent of this, however, is covered by 
lakes, and the average number of inhabitants to the 
square mile is only seventeen. The corresponding 
figures of inhabitants to the square mile for Sweden 
is twenty-eight; for Denmark, however, it is one 
hundred and forty-eight, and for all Europe, it is 
ninety-eight. The density of population is greatest 
in Larvik and Jarlsberg on the south (barring 
the cities of Christiania and Bergen). In these 
provinces there are one hundred and sixteen inhab- 
itants to the square mile. In Hedemarken the num- 
ber falls to twelve. The western fjord districts, 
those of Trondhjem Fjord, the Sogne Fjord and the 
Hardanger Fjord are thickly populated. 

Norway is a land of fjords and lakes, of moun- 
tains and glacier expanses. Less than one-fourth 
of the country is capable of cultivation, and eighty 
per cent of this is forest land. This leaves less than 
five per cent under actual cultivation. We may 
compare again with Denmark, where seventy-six per 
cent of the land is cultivated, while in all Europe 
the ratio is forty per cent. 

Norway's climate is noted for its healthfulness, ^ 

Tltlv-as 1,490,950 in 1855, 2,350,000 in 1908. 

5 Dr. A. Magelson of Christiania has recently written a work on 
Norway as a health resort entitled: To Norway for Health. A Sci- 
entifio Account of the Peculiar Advantages of the Norwegian Climate, 
published by Nikolai Olson, Christiania. 



NORWAY: POPULATION, ETC. 21 

and its inhabitants attain a higher degree of long- 
evity than those of most other European countries. 
Nearly seven per cent of its people reach the age of 
sixty to seventy, while one per cent attain to the age 
of from ninety to one hundred years. That is, reck- 
oned as a vs^hole, about twelve per cent attain to the 
age of sixty years or more. This is considerable in 
excess of that of nearly all other European coun- 
tries. 

The average age in Norway is fifty, while for 
instance, in Italy it is thirty-five. But the expect- 
ancy is far more than this for him who passes in- 
fancy ; thus if one attains to the age of fifty in Nor- 
way, one still may expect to live twenty-three years. 
Such is the health and the expectancy of life among 
our immigrants from Norway. 

The predominant pursuit in Norway is agricul- 
ture, cattle farming and forest cultivation. Herein 
forty-eight per cent of the population seeks its main- 
tenance. The immigrant pioneer generally selects 
in America the pursuit or occupation for which he 
has been trained in his native country. And so we 
find that the great majority of Norwegian immigrants 
have sought homes in rural communities and engaged 
in farming and related pursuits. In fact, more than 
eighty-eight per cent of our Norwegian immigrants 
have come from rural communities. Twenty-three 
per cent of the population of Norway are engaged 
in industries and mining. To these occupations in 
this country, Norway has, especially in the later 
period of immigration, contributed a considerable 



22 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

share. A little over eight per cent of her people are 
engaged in iSshing. And so we find that a propor- 
tionately very large amount of the New England 
fisheries is conducted by fishermen who have come 
from Norway. Navigation engages six per cent of 
the population of Norway. In this connection I note 
that our warships in the Spanish-American war 
were many of them manned almost exclusively by 
Norwegian sailors ; ^ and there were Norwegians in 
the American marine service as early as the War of 
Independence, as again in no small proportion in the 
Civil War in the sixties. 

Perhaps about five per cent of Norway's pop- 
ulation is engaged in intellectual work. Here, too, 
the contribution of Norway to our population in 
America has been considerable, especially during the 
last twenty years. 

Nearly all of the Norwegian population is of 
the Protestant faith, and the great majority of these 
are members of the state church, which is the Lu- 
theran. Somewhat similar are the affiliations in 
America. 
V The constitution of Norway is liberal and the 

government highly democratic. In these respects 
the people of Norway are now perhaps as favorably 
circumstanced as we in America. The Norwegian 
readily enters into the spirit of American laws and 



6 The Reliance which defended the America cup against Sham- 
rock III in 1903 was manned abnost exclusively by Norwegians. They 
were from the following towns in Norway: Arendal, Aalesund, 
Stavanger, Bergen, Larvik, Christiania, and Haugesund. 



NORWAY: POPULATION, ETC. 23 

institutions, for their laws are not essentially dif- 
ferent from his own. Being accustomed to a high 
degree of freedom, he has been trained to a high con- 
ception of the responsibilities that that freedom en- 
tails. He has long been accustomed to representa- 
tion and sharing in the rights of franchise, and he 
exercises that right as a privilege and a solemn duty. 
It may be said, I believe, that no people has a higher 
sense of right and wrong and a stronger moral in- 
centive to right. Frauds in elections and graft in 
official life are yet unheard-of among our Norwegian- 
American citizens. 

Norway is, next to Finland, the most temperate 
of European countries. The sale of liquor is per- 
mitted only in incorporated cities and towns, and 
only by an association that is organized under 
government supervision. It is the so-called Gothen- 
burg system that is in use. Of the earnings of such 
organization the government takes five per cent, the 
county ten per cent and the municipality fifteen per 
cent, while the net profit of the association must not 
exceed five per cent on the investment in any one 
year. The hours of sale are very much restricted. Not 
only is there no sale of liquor on Sundays, but places 
of such business must close at one o'clock on Satur- 
day and on days preceding holidays, Norway is 
essentially a temperate country. Statistics show 
that out of every thousand deaths, only one is due 
to drink. The Norwegian people have educated 
themselves to abstinence, and the temperance move- 



24 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ment found wide support earlier in Norway than 
anywhere else. Det norske Totalafholds Selskab ^ 
was organized in 1859; ten years ago it had ten 
hundred and twenty branches and a hundred 
and thirty thousand members, while other temper- 
ance associations also have a considerable member- 
ship. Here in America, the Norwegian immigrant 
has taken a prominent part in legislation looking to- 
ward the restriction of the sale of intoxicating 
liquors,^ and the Prohibition party finds its strong- 
est support among the Norwegians, as it finds a 
relatively large number of its candidates for state 
and county offices from among them. 

Crime conditions in Norway are similarly sig- 
nificant. Comparative statistics are difficult of ac- 
cess, but Norway's proportion of serious offences 
is very low. In the whole period from 1891-1895 
the total number was only two hundred and sixty- 
one. Norway has its poor as every country has, but 
it has its excellent system of taking care of the poor. 
Thus every municipality has a Board of Guardians 
(fattigkommission), which consists of the parish 
minister, a police officer, and several men chosen by 
a local board. Norway keeps her criminals and 
takes care of her poor; she does not send them to 
America, as has only too often been the case in some 
other countries. 



7 The Norwegian Total Abstinence Society. 

8 When the Sunday closing order was instituted in Minneapolis 
in December, 1905, the Minneapolis Journal commented upon the fact 
that the Norwegian citizens made no complaint, as it appears othera 
did. 



NORWAY: POPULATION, ETC. 25 

Norway has a highly developed school system 
crowned by the Royal Frederik University at 
Christiania. It has compulsory education, its 
boards of inspection and its great Department of 
Public Instruction. It has its People's High School, 
its Workingmen's Colleges, and a system of second- 
ary schools, whose curricula are still on a conserva- 
tive basis. Its one University ranks with the fore- 
most in Europe, and with it are connected various 
laboratories and scientific institutions, and it has a 
library of three hundred and fifty thousand volumes. 
Here too are located its Botanical Gardens, the His- 
torical Museum, the Astronomical and Magnetic Ob- 
servatory, the Meteriological Institute and the Bio- 
logical Marine Station.^ The salaries of its teach- 
ers in Middelskole Gymnasium, and of instructors 
and professors in the University, reckoned by the 
purchasing power of money, is approximately thirty 
per cent greater than that of our middle western 
universities. I shall also mention The Royal Nor- 
wegian Scientific Society at Trondhjem, founded 
1760, a similar society in Christiania, founded 1857, 
the Bergen Museum, founded 1825, with its literary 
and scientific collections illustrative of the life and 
cultural history of "Western Norway, The Norwegian 
National Museum in Christiania, founded 1894, sim- 
ilar, but more general in character. The Industrial 
Arts Museum,^^ and the various archives of the 
Kingdom. 

9 This is located at Drobak. 

10 Though Norway's participation in the Universal Exposition at 



26 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

As to the Norwegian language I shall merely 
speak of its highly analytic character, in which 
respect it has for a long time been developing in the 
same direction as English, though of course, abso- 
lutely independently. Being closely cognate with 
English, a large part of the vocabulary of the two 
is of the same stock. Further, its sound system is 
fundamentally similar. These three considerations, 
especially perhaps the first, will make clear to us the 
reason why the Norwegian so readily learns to use 
the English language, and if he learns it in youth, 
even to the point of mastery. This is of the greatest 
importance, for language is in modern times the real 
badge of nationality. A correct use of the English 
language is the first and chief stamp of American 
nationality, the key without which the foreigner can- 
not enter into the spirit of American life and insti- 
tutions. 

Norwegian literature I cannot either discuss 
here. The great movements it represents in recent 
times are fairly well known ; its significance and its 
broad influence are beginning to be understood. The 
genius of Norwegian literature is morality and truth. 
It expresses herein the high ethical sense of the na- 
tion, which is pagan-racial, but which is also Chris- 
tian-Lutheran, a church which in its preeminent 
spirituality is the typical Teutonic church. 

St. Louis in 1904 as regards number of exhibits was limited, its ex- 
hibits were acknowledged to be of very high grade, thus in its tapes- 
tries, in carved and inlaid work, in silver and enamel displays it re- 
ceived the highest awards. Keport by Consul Fr. Waage, General Com- 
missioner to the St. Louis Exposition, Skandinaven, June 14th, 1905. 



CHAPTER II 

Emigration from Norway. 

Emigration from Norway has in large part been 
transatlantic. Norway has lost by American emi- 
gration a comparatively larger portion of her pop- 
ulation than any other country in Europe, with the 
exception of Ireland. The great majority of the em- 
igrants have gone to the northwestern states and 
found there their future homes. In Northern Illi- 
nois, in Wisconsin and Minnesota, in Northern and 
Western Iowa, in North and South Dakota, they 
form a very large proportion of the population. 
Emigration to European countries has been directed 
chiefly to Sweden and Denmark, though not few 
have settled in England and Germany and some in 
Holland. Between 1871 and 1875 about fifteen hun- 
dred persons emigrated from Norway to Australia; 
the number that have gone there since that has been 
much smaller. These have settled chiefly in South 
Australia, Victoria and New Zealand. In recent 
years some have settled in the Argentine Republic 
in South America. Norwegians are found in con- 
siderable numbers in Western Canada, but the ma- 
jority of these have emigrated from the Norwegian 
communities in the western states, especially Min- 
nesota and North Dakota. 

Norwegian emigration to the United States took 



28 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

systematic form with the sailing of Norden and Den 
Norske Klippe in 1836. In 1843 it began to assume 
larger proportions; in that year sixteen hundred 
immigrants from Norway settled in the United 
States. During 1866-1870, a period of financial 
depression in Norway, there left, on an average, 
about fifteen thousand a year. The rate fell in the 
seventies, rose again in the eighties, the figure for 
1882 being 29,101 persons, while it averaged over 
eighteen thousand per annum also for the next dec- 
ade. In 1898 it was not quite five thousand, then 
again it rose steadily, reaching 24,461 in 1903. 

The Norwegian emigration has been mostly from 
rural districts, day-laborers, artisans, farmers, sea- 
men, but also those representing other pursuits. 
Not a few with professional or technical education 
have settled in America ; we find them in the medical 
profession,^^ in the ministry,^^ in journalism, in the 
faculties of our colleges. All the age-classes are 
represented among immigrants from Norway, but 
by far the largest number of both men and women 
have come during the ages of twenty to thirty-five, 
and particularly the first half of these series of 
years. 

This great emigration of the Norwegian race 
during the nineteenth century has, of course, very 
materially retarded the growth of the population 
in Norway, especially in the period from 1865 to 
1890. The increase between 1815 and 1835 was as 

1 1 Mostly in recent years. 

12 In the early period chiefly. 



EMIGRATION FROM NORWAY 29 

high as 1.34 per cent annually. From 1835 to 1865 
it was 1.18 per cent, but during 1865-1890 it fell to 
0.65 per cent. Since 1890 the increase has been con- 
considerable again. But during 1866-1903 the total 
emigration from Norway to the United States alone 
aggregated five hundred and twenty-four thousand. 
To this number should be added the children of these 
if we are to have a proper basis of estimation for the 
increase of the race in the last half century. This 
increase thus has been 1.40 per cent annually, that 
is, the race has doubled itself in fifty years. We 
may compare with France, where the increase has 
been 0.23 per cent, Eussia,^^ where it has been 1.35, 
in Servia, where it has been 2.00 per cent, this be- 
ing the highest in Europe. The increase in Sweden 
and Denmark is about the same as in Norway — 
reckoning the racial increase. 

It will be of interest here to consider briefly the 
immigration from the Scandinavian countries as a 
whole. 

During the years 1820-1830 not more than 283 
emigrated from the Scandinavian countries to the 
United States. In the following decade the number 
only slightly exceeded two thousand. Since 1850 
our statistics regarding the foreign born population 
are more complete. In that year we find there were 
a little over eighteen thousand persons in the coun- 
try of Scandinavian birth. In 1880 this number had 

13 The figures here are for the period closing with 1890 before 
■which year Russia had furnished very few emigrants to the United 
States. 



30 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

reached 440,262; while the unprecedented exodus of 
1882 and the following years had by 1890 brought 
the number up to 933,249. Thus the immigrant pop- 
ulation from these countries, which in 1850 was less 
than one per cent, had in 1890 reached ten per cent 
of the whole foreign element. The following t-able 
will show the proportion contributed by the coun- 
tries designated for each decade since 1850 ; 

Table I 
1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 



Ireland . . . . 42.8 


38.9 


33.3 


^^x:^!^ J. — 

27.8 


20.2 


15.6 


Germany .... 26 


30.8 


30.4 


29.4 


30.1 


25.8 


England . . . . 12.4 


10.5 


10 


9.9 


9.8 


8.1 


Canada .... 6.6 


6 


8.9 


10.7 


10.6 


11.4 


Scotland and Wales 4 . 4 


3.7 


3.8 


3.8 


3.7 


3.2 


Scandinavia . . .9 


1.7 


4.3 


6.6 


10.1 


10.3 



Thus it will be seen that among European coun- 
tries Scandinavia, considered as one, stands third 
in the number of persons contributed to the Ajner- 
ican foreign-bom population, exceeding that of Scot- 
land and Wales in 1870 and that of England in 
1890. Both the Irish and the German immigration 
reached considerable numbers at least fifteen years 
before that from the North, Ireland having contrib- 
uted nearly forty-three per cent of the total in 1850, 
and Germany twenty-six. By 1900 the Irish quota 
had fallen to fifteen per cent, while the German 
is nearly twenty-six and that from Scandinavia ten 
per cent. In 1870 our Scandinavian-born immigrant 
population was twice as large as the French and 



EMIGRATION FROM NORWAY 31 

equalled the total from Holland, Switzerland, Aus- 
tria, Bohemia, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Russia.^"* 

The Norwegians are the pioneers in the emigra- 
tion movement from the North in the nineteenth 
century ; the Danes were the last to come in consider- 
able numbers. Statistics, however, show that one 
hundred eighty-nine Danes had emigrated to this 
country before 1830, while there were only ninety- 
four from Norway and Sweden. The Norwegian 
foreign-bom population had in 1850 reached 12,678 ; 
while that from Sweden was 3,559; and Denmark 
had furnished a little over eighteen hundred. The 
Danish immigration was not over five thousand a 
year until 1880 and has never reached twelve thou- 
sand. The Swedish immigration received a new 
impulse in 1852; it was five thousand in 1868; it 
reached its climax of 64,607 in 1882. According to 
Norwegian statistics the emigration from Norway 
to the United States was six thousand and fifty in 
1853, but according to our census reports did not 
reach five thousand before 1866; the highest figure, 
29,101, was reached in 1882 (according to our cen- 
sus). ^^ 

The total emigration from the Scandinavian 
countries to America between 1820 and 1903 was 
1,617,111. This remarkable figure becomes doubly 
remarkable when we stop to consider that the popu- 
lation of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden is only 

14 The four last named countries have, as we know, in the last 
decade entered very extensively into the emigration movement. 

15 Or 28,000 according to Norwegian statistics. 



32 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

two and one-half per cent of the total population of 
Europe; yet they have contributed nearly ten per 
cent of our immigrant population. There are in 
this country nearly one-third as many Scandinavians 
(counting those of foreign birth and foreign parent- 
age both) as in the Scandinavian countries; for the 
German element the ratio is one to thirteen. 

At this point I may refer the reader to the table 
in Appendix I of this volume, showing the growth 
and distribution of the Scandinavian factor, espe- 
cially in the northwestern states, since 1850. Table 
I shows Wisconsin as having almost as large a 
Scandinavian population in 1850 as all the rest of 
the country. Wisconsin was the destination of the 
Norwegian immigrant from the time emigration be- 
gan to assume larger proportions, and it held the 
lead for twenty-five years. Iowa and Southern 
Minnesota began entering into competition prom- 
inently since 1852 and 1855 respectively. The 
growth of Swedish immigration in the fifties and 
sixties gave the lead to Minnesota by 1870, Illi- 
nois taking second place in 1890. Returning now 
to the Norwegian immigration specifically, it may be 
observed that it was directed to the Northwest down 
to recent years, almost to the exclusion of the rest 
of the country. The reader may now be referred to 
Table II in the Appendix, which shows the growth 
of the Norwegian population in each state since 
1850. 

This table tells its own story. In New England 
the Norwegian factor is unimportant. There has 



EMIGRATION FROM NORWAY 33 

been a high ratio of growth in New York and New 
Jersey since 1880, but the total number is not large. 
In the rest of the Atlantic seaboard states, as in 
the gulf states, the Norwegian population has re- 
mained almost stationary at a very low figure. 
Such is also the case with the inland states of the 
South, as in the Southwest. The effort to direct 
Norwegian immigration to Texas, which goes back 
to the forties, has been productive of only meagre 
results. Even Kansas is too far south for the Nor- 
wegian. In the extreme West, however, consider- 
able numbers of Norwegians have established homes 
since about 1882, particularly in California, Oregon 
and Washington, since 1895 also in Montana, and in 
recent years even in the extreme North, in Alaska. 

What were the influences that directed the Nor- 
wegian immigrants so largely to the Northwest in 
the early period and down to 1890? 

The great majority came for the sake of better- 
ing their material condition. They came here to 
found a home and to make a living. Moreover, as 
I have observed above, immigrants in their new home 
generally enter the same pursuits and engage in the 
same occupations in which they were engaged in their 
native country. 

Three-fourths of the population of Norway live 
in the rural districts and are mostly engaged in 
some form of farming. ^^ Thus seventy-two per cent 
of the Norwegian immigrants are found in the rural 



16 This includes also fishermen and foresters. 



34 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

districts and in towns with less than twenty-five 
thousand population. The fact that the influx of 
the immigrants from Norway coincided with the 
opening up of the middle western states resulted in 
the settlement of those states by Norwegian immi- 
grants. Land could be had for almost nothing in 
the West. Land-seekers from New England, New 
York and Pennsylvania were in those days flocking 
to the West. ^'' About ninety per cent of the Nor- 
wegian immigrants at that time were land-seekers. 
As a rule long before he emigrated the Norseman 
had made up his mind to settle in Wisconsin, Illinois, 
Iowa, or Minnesota. 



17 Outside of Chicago, Illinois had in 1840 a population of 
142,210; Wisconsin was organized as a Territory in 1836, its popu- 
lation in 1840 was 30,945; Iowa had a population of only 192,212 in 
1850; and Minnesota, organized at a Territory in 1849, had in 1850, 
1,056 inhabitants. To the square mile the population of each was in 
1850: Illinois, 15.37; Wisconsin, 5.66; Iowa, 3.77; Minnesota, .04. 



CHAPTER III 

The Earliest Immigrants from Norivay, 1620 to 1825. 

Our data regarding Norwegian emigration to 
America prior to 1825 are very fragmentary, but it 
it is possible to trace that emigration as far back as 
1624.^^ In that year a small colony of Norwegians 
was established in New Jersey on the site of the 
present city of Bergen. ^^ While it is not known that 
the names of any of these first colonists have come 
down to us, we do have the name of one Norwegian, 
who visited the American coast on a voyage of ex- 
ploration in the year 1619, that is, the year before 
the landing of the Mayflower. In the early part of 
1619 King Christian IV of Denmark fitted out two 
ships for the purpose of finding a northwest passage 
to Asia. The names of the ships were Eenhjornin- 
gen and Lampreren, and the commander was a Nor- 
wegian, Jens Munk, who was born at Barby, Nor- 
way, in 1579. With sixty-six men Jens Munk sailed 
from Copenhagen, May ninth, 1619. During the 
autumn of that year and the early part of the follow- 
ing year he explored Hudson Bay and took posses- 
sion of the surrounding country in the name of King 

18 The Vinland voyages in the llth-14th centuries do not come 
within the scope of our discussion. 

19 It seems that this city was so named by the colonists after the 
city of Bergen, Norway. 



36 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Christian, calling it Nova Dania. The expedition 
was, however, a failure, and all but three of the 
party perished from disease and exposure to cold in 
the winter of 1620. The three survivors, among 
whom was the commander, Jens Munk, returned to 
Norway in September, 1620.^° 

In the early days of the New Netherlands col- 
ony, Norwegians sometimes came across in Dutch 
ships and settled among the Dutch. The names of 
at least two such have been preserved in the Dutch 
colonial records. They are Hans Hansen and Claes 
Carstensen (possibly originally Klaus Kristenson). 
The former emigrated in a Dutch ship in 1633 and 
joined the Dutch colony in New Amsterdam. His 
name appears in the colonial records variously as 
Hans Noorman, Hans Hansen de Noorman, Hans 
Bergen, Hans Hansen von Bergen, and Hans Han- 
sen von Bergen in Norwegen. Hans Bergen be- 
came the ancestor of a large American family by 
that name.^^ Claes Carstensen's name appears va- 
riously as Claes Noorman, Claes Carstensen Noor- 
man and Claes Van Sant, the latter being the Nor- 
wegian name Sande in Jarlsberg, where Claes Car- 
stenson was born, 1607. He came to America about 
1640 and settled a few years later on fifty-eight 
acres of land on the site of the present Williams- 
burg. The ministerial records of the old Dutch Ee- 
formed Church in New York state that Claes Car- 
stensen was married April 15, 1646, to Helletje Hen- 

20 Anderson 's First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, p. 21. 

21 See The Bergen Family, by Teunis Bergen. 



EARLIEST IMMIGRANTS 37 

dricks. The latter was, it seems, a sister of An- 
necken Hendricks, who was there married on Feb- 
ruary first, 1650, to Jan Arentzen van der Bilt, the 
colonial ancestor of Commodore Vanderbilt. An- 
necken Hendricks is further designated as being 
from Bergen, Norway, the names ''Helletje" and 
^'Annecken" being Dutch diminutive forms of the 
Norwegian Helen and Anne. Claes Carstensen died 
November sixth, 1679. 

About the year 1700 there were a number of 
families of Norwegian and Danish descent living in 
New York. In 1704 a stone church was erected by 
them on the comer of Broadway and Eector Streets. 
The property was later sold to Trinity Church, the 
present churchyard occupying the site of the orig- 
inal church.^^ Prof. R. B. Anderson, speaking of 
these people, says, that they were probably mostly 
Norwegians and not Danes, for those of their de- 
scendants with whom he has spoken have all claimed 
Norwegian descent. The pastor who ministered to 
the spiritual wants of this first Scandinavian Lu- 
theran congregation in America was a Dane by the 
name of Rasmus Jensen Aarhus. He died on the 
southwest coast of Hudson Bay, February twentieth, 
1720. 

In 1740 Norwegian Moravians took part in the 
founding of a Moravian colony at Bethlehem, Penn- 
sylvania, and in 1747 of one at Bethabara, North 
Carolina. At Bethlehem these Norwegian (and 

22 Our authority here is Rev. Rasmus Anderson, who has given 
this subject much study. 



38 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Swedish and Danisli) Moravians came in contact 
with their kinsmen, the Swedish Lutherans of Dela- 
ware and adjoining parts of New Jersey and Penn- 
sylvania. The Swedes on the Delaware had lost 
their independence in 1656. New Sweden as a polit- 
ical state existed but sixteen years. Ecclesiatically, 
however, the Lutherans of New Sweden remained 
subject to the state church at home for one hundred 
and fifty years more, and linguistically the colony 
was Swedish nearly as long. In the church records 
of this colony there appear not a few Norwegian 
names, particularly in the later period. We know 
that Norwegians in considerable numbers came to 
America and joined the Delaware Swedes in the 
eighteenth century. Gothenburg, which lies not far 
distant from the province of Smaalenene, was at 
the time, and has continued to be, the regular Swed- 
ish sailing port for America-bound ships. 

One of the most prominent members of the 
Bethabara Colony was Dr. John M. Calberlane, born 
1722 in Trondhjem, Norway. He came to New York 
in 1753, having sailed from London on the ship 
Irene, June thirteenth, arriving on September ninth. 
Dr. Calberlane 's name occupies a foremost place 
among the old colonial physicians ; he was a man of 
much ability, noble in character and untiring in his 
devotion to the welfare of his fellow colonists. On 
July twenty-eighth, 1759, he himself succumbed to 
a contagious fever that visited the settlement. In 
a sermon delivered on Easter Sunday, 1760, Bishop 



EARLIEST IMMIGRANTS 39 

Spangenberg gave public recognition of Calberlane's 
service in his short life of six years in the colony.^^ 
Other Norwegians among these Moravian col- 
onists were : Susanna Stokkeberg, from Sondmore, 
Norway, born 1715, who came to America in 1744 with 
her husband, Abraham Eeinke, a Swede, to whom she 
had been married that year in Stockholm. Reinke is 
reputed to have been an able preacher of the gospel, 
the two laboring together in the congregations of 
Bethlehem, Nazareth, Philadelphia, and Lancaster. 
She died in 1758, he in 1760, leaving a son, Abraham 
Reinke. Peter Peterson, who was bom in Norway 
in 1728, and had joined the church in London, came 
to America as a sailor on the ship Irene in 1749. 
He died in 1750. Jens Wittenberg, a tanner from 
Christiania, born 1719, came on the Irene in 1754; 
he died in the colony, 1788. Martha Mans (probably 
Monsdatter), from Bergen, born 1716, came on the 
Irene in 1749. She lived in Bethabara as a teacher 
and religious adviser until 1773. At the same time, 
also, came Enert Enerson, a carpenter, while in 1759 
came Catherine Kalberlahn, and in 1762 Christian 
Christensen, a shoemaker, from Christiana. The 
latter was born in 1718; he had lived some years 
in Holland before coming to America. The year 
of his death is 1777. Erik Ingebretsen came 
over June twenty-second, 1750, via Dover, hav- 

23 The name John M. Calberlane, originally Hans Martin Kalber- 
lahn, is an interesting instance of an early Americanization of a Nor- 
Tvegian name. 



40 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ing been on the ocean six weeks, a remarkably short 
passage for that time.-'* 

The names of several Norwegians are recorded 
who served in the War of the Revolution. Thus 
under John Paul Jones served Thomas Johnson, 
who was born 1758, the son of a pilot in Mandal, 
Norway. The New England Historical Register, 
Volume XXVIII, pages 18-21, gives an account of 
Johnson's career in the American marine, from 
which we learn that he was among those who served 
on board the Boyi Homme Richard in her cruise in 
1779, having been transferred by Paul Jones from 
the Ranger. Later he went with Paul Jones to the 
Serapis and the Alliance and finally to the Ariel. 
With the last ship he arrived in Philadelphia Feb- 
ruary eighteenth, 1781. For a fuller account of 
Johnson's career the interested reader is referred to 
the source of which mention has already been made. 

Thomas Johnson lived to the good old age of 
ninety-three, dying July twelfth, 1807, in the United 
States Naval Hospital in Philadelphia. He had 
been a pensionist here for a number of years, being 
known generally by the nickname ''Paul Jones." A 
biography of Johnson written by John Henry Sher- 
burne was published at Washington in 1825, to which 
I have, however, not had access. Another Norwe- 
gian by the name of Lewis Brown (Lars Bruun) 
also served under John Paul Jones. I lack further 
particulars, however, regarding Brown, except that 

24 For some of these facts I am indebted to Juul Dieserud, 
Washington, D. C. 



EARLIEST IMMIGRANTS 41 

he is spoken of in Sherburne's book, Life of Thomas 
Johnson. 

A Norwegian sailor, Captain Iverson, settled 
in Georgia some time about the close of the 
eighteenth century. United States Senator Iverson 
from Georgia was a grandson of this Norwegian 
sailor pioneer in Georgia. -^ About 1805 another sail- 
or, Torgus Torkelson Gromstu, from Gjerpen, near 
Skien, Norway, settled in New York. 

In my article on ' ' The Danish Contingent in the 
Population of Early Iowa," loiva Journal of His- 
tory and Politics, 1906, I spoke of a society, styling 
itself Scandinavia, as having been organized in New 
York City on June twenty- seventh, 1844. I there 
designated this as the earliest organization of the 
kind in this country. This I find now to be incor- 
rect. As early as 1769 the Societas Scandinaviensis 
was founded in Philadelphia. The membership of 
this society was made up of Swedes, Norwegians 
and Danes, the first of these presumably being in o-*-. 
the majority. The first president of the society was 
Abraham Markoe (Marko), a Norwegian:' One of 
the memorable events in the history of the society 
was a farewell reception given in ''City Tavern" on 
December eleventh, 1782, in honor of Baron Axel 
Ferson, hero of the Battle of Yorktown. The com- 
mittee of seven appointed to present the invitation 

25 P. S. Vig. in his book De Danshe i Amerika says Iverson was 
of Danish descent but gives no reasons for the claim. As the name 
"Iver" is peculiarly Norwegian I must therefore adhere to my view 
as formerly expressed {Sc. Immig. to Iowa). 



42 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

and also to wait upon General George Washington 
at Hasbrouch House, Newburg, with a view of se- 
curing his presence consisted of the following : Cap- 
tain Abraham Markoe, Sakarias Paulsen, Andrea - 
sen Taasinge, Rev. Andrew Goeranson, Jacob Van 
der Weer, John Stille and Andrew Keen. Says the 
chronicler of the event: 

"This event was one of the most glorious in the So- 
ciety's history. The reception was held at the City Tav- 
ern, Wednesday evening, December eleventh, 1782. The 
President of the St. Andrew's Society, Rev. Wm. Smith, 
D. D., lauded the bravery of the Baron and his men at the 
Battle of Yorktown, whereupon General Washington in 
thanking the members of the Society for their forethought 
in tendering the reception to the noble officer (he subse- 
quently decorated Person with the ''Order of the Cincin- 
nati" for valor displayed) expressed his pleasure at being 
present among the people of his forefathers' blood, as he 
claimed descent from the family of Wass, who emigrated 
from Denmark in the year A. D. 970, and settled in the 
County Durham> England, where they built a small town, 
calling it Wass-in-ga-tun (town of Wass.) " ^6 

In January, 1783, General George Washington 
was elected honorary member of the Society on 
account of his Norse ancestry. On the twenty- 
sixth of August, that year, a banquet was given at 
the City Tavern under the auspices of the Society, 

26 Cited from a prospectus of the Society issued in December, 
1901, and kindly sent me by C. M. Machold of Philadelphia. 

Variant forms of the name Wassingatun are, as given in the 
prospectus, Wessington, Whessingtone, Wasengtone, Wassington and 
finally Washington. The prospectus itself cites from Maehold 'a His- 
tory of the Scandinavians in Pennsylvania. 



EARLIEST IMMIGRANTS 43 

iu celebration of the recognition by Sweden, Norway, 
and Denmark of the independence of the United 
States of America, i John Stille was for many years 
secretary of the Society; after his death in 1802 all 
traces of it seem to have vanished. Just when the 
Societies Scandinaviensis ceased to exist, the His- 
torian cannot say. On February twentieth, 1868, 
eighteen gentlemen, all of Scandinavian birth and 
residents of Philadelphia, met together for the pur- 
pose of forming a society, and The Scandinavian 
Society of Philadelphia was founded, an organiza- 
tion which regards itself a continuation of the orig- 
inal society. The chief object of the Society is 
benevolence. 

The name of at least one Norwegian who fell in 
the early wars against the Indians has come down to 
us. Frank Peterson, who had enlisted on the fif- 
teenth of June, 1808, was among those who fell at 
Fort Dearborn in 1812, among the ''first martyrs of 
the West, " in an attack by five hundred Pottawatta- 
mie Indians. In this battle two-thirds of the whites 
were killed and the rest taken prisoners. 

At a later date some other names also appear, 
but those given are the only ones of which we have 
any record. I shall mention here that of Ole Hau- 
gen, who probably was the first Norwegian to settle 
in the State of Massachusetts. Haugen was from 
Bergen, Norway, and located in Middlesex County, 
that state, in 1815. Alexander Paaske, himself an 
early immigrant from Bergen, living in Lowell, 



44 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Mass., and who was present at Haugen's deathbed, 
is the source of the above fact. Though going be- 
yond the scope of our brief survey of this earliest 
immigration, it may be of interest here to know that 
as early as 1817, a girl from Voss, Norway, Anna 
Vetlahuso, emigrated to America with her husband, 
a German sailor in Bergen, and settled somewhere in 
South America. The next recorded names in the 
order of emigration to the United States are Kleng 
Peerson and Knud Olson Eide, who in 1821 became 
the advance guard of a group of fifty-two emigrants 
that in 1825 founded the first Norwegian settlement 
in this country. It is of this sailing and the leaders 
of this group that I now wish to speak; of Peerson 
I shall give a brief account below. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Sloopers of 1825. The First Norwegian Settle- 
ment in America. Kleng Peerson 

The story of the Sloopers from Stavanger, Nor- 
way, who came to America in 1825, has often been 
told; I shall therefore be very brief in my account 
of that expedition. Under causes of emigration I 
shall have occasion below to note briefly some of the 
circumstances that seem to have led to their depart- 
ure for America in that year. The director of the 
expedition and the chief owner of the boat was Lars 
Larson i Jeilane ; the captain was Lars Olsen. The 
company consisted of fifty-two persons, all but one 
being natives of Stavanger and vicinity ; the one ex- 
ception was the mate, Nels Erikson, who came from 
Bergen. Relative to the leading spirit in this first 
group of emigrants, Lars Larson, I shall say here : He 
was born near Stavanger, September twenty-fourth, 
1787. He became a sailor, was captured in the Na- 
poleonic wars and kept a prisoner in London for 
seven years. Being released in 1814, he remained in 
London, however, till 1815, when he and several 
other prisoners returned to Norway, In London 
they had been converted to the Quaker faith by Mrs. 
Margaret Allen, and upon returning to Stavanger, 
Lars Larson, Elias Tastad, Thomas Helle and Metta 
Helle became the founders of the first Quaker society 



46 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

in that city, a society which is still in existence. 
In 1821 the Stavanger Quakers began to form 
plans for emigrating to America. It seems that 
Kleng Peerson and Ivnud Eide, whom we have men- 
tioned above, were deputed to go to America for 
the purpose of learning something of the country 
with a view to planting there a Quaker colony. 
Kleng Peerson returned to Stavanger in 1824 with 
a favorable report and many of the members of the 
Quaker colony began to make preparations for emi- 
grating to the locality selected by Peerson, namely, 
Orleans County, New York State. A sloop of only 
forty-five tons capacity which they called Restaura- 
tionen, built in Hardanger, was purchased and loaded 
with a cargo of iron and made ready for the jour- 
ney. Larson himself had married in December, 
1824, Georgiana Person, who was born October 19, 
1803, on Fogn, a small island near Stavanger. Be- 
sides him there were five other heads of families. 
On the fourth of July, 1825, they set sail from Stav- 
anger. The following fifty-two persons made up the 
party: Lars Larson and wife Martha Georgiana; 
Lars Olson, who was captain of the boat, Cornelius 
Nelson Hersdal, wife and four children;-'' Daniel 
Stenson Kossadal, wife and five children ;2^ Thomas 
Madland, wife and three children,^^ Nels Nelson 



27 Anne (b. 1814), Nels (b. 1816), Inger (b. 1819), and Martha 
(b. 1823). 

28 Ellen (b. 1807), Ove (b. 1809), Lars (b. 1812), John (b. 
1821), Hulda (b. 1825). 

29 Kachel (b. 1807), Julia (b. 1810), Senena (b. 1814). 



FIRST SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA 47 

Hersdal and wife Bertha, Knud Anderson Slogvig, 
Jacob Anderson Slogvig, Gudmnnd Hangaas, Johan- 
nes Stene, wife and two children, Oien Thorson 
(Thompson) wife and three children,^" Simon Lima, 
wife and three children, Henrik Christopherson tler- 
vig, and wife, Ole Johnson, George Johnson, Thor- 
sten Olson Bjaaland, Nels Thorson, Ole Olson 
Hetletvedt, Sara Larson (sister of Lars Larson), 
Halvor Iverson, Andrew Stangeland, the mate, Nels 
Erikson, and the cook, Endre Dahl. 

After a perilous voyage of fourteen weeks they 
landed in New York, October ninth. An ac- 
count of that voyage, which also it seems was a 
rather adventurous one, was given by the New York 
l)apers at the time ; it was reproduced in Norwegian 
translation in Billed-Magazin in 1869, whence it has 
been copied in other works. The arrival of this 
first party of Norwegian immigrants, and in so 
small a boat, created nothing less than a sensation 
at the time, as we may infer from the wide atten- 
tion the event received in the eastern press. Thus 
the New York Daily Advertiser for October twelfth, 
1825, under the head lines, ''A Novel Sight," gives 
an account of the boat, the destination of the immi- 
grants, the country they came from, their appear- 
ance, etc. For this citation I may refer the reader 
to page 39 of my article on ' ' The Coming of the Nor- 
wegians to Iowa" in The Iowa Journal of History 
and Politics, 1905, or to R. B. Anderson's First 
Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, 1896, 70-71. 

■ 30 Sara (b. 1818), Anna Maria (b. 1819), Caroline (b. 1825). 



48 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

In New York the immigrants met Mr. Joseph 
Fellows, a Quaker, from whom they purchased land 
in Orleans County, New York. It seems to have been 
upon the suggestion of Mr. Fellows that they were 
induced to settle here, although it is possible that 
the land had already been selected for them by 
Kleng Peerson, who was in New York at the time. 
The price to be paid for the land was five dollars an 
acre, each head of a family and adult person pur- 
chasing forty acres. The immigrants not being able 
to pay for the land, Mr. Fellows agreed to let them 
redeem it in ten annual installments. For the fur- 
ther liistory of the colony, with which we are here 
not so much concerned, the reader is referred to 
Knud Langeland's Nordmaendene i Amerika, Chica- 
go, 1889, pp. 10-19, or to Anderson's First Chapter, 
pp. 77-90. 

We have already mentioned Kleng Peerson, a 
name familiar to every student of Norwegian pio- 
neer historj^ Much has been written about this 
pathfinder in the West, and romance and legend al- 
ready adorn his memory. It would be interesting 
to recount what we know of his life in America, but 
as this has been dealt with at length by Professor 
K. B. Anderson in his monograph on Norwegian Im- 
migration, which is in large jDart devoted to the 
slooper's history, I may refer the interested reader 
to this work. Synira (Decorah, Iowa) for 1906 also 
contains a brief, somewhat eulogistic account in 
Norwegian of Peerson 's stay in New York and his 



FIRST SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA 49 

journey of exploration to Illinois, Missouri, and Tex- 
as. The briefest facts I may, however, relate here. 

Kleng Peerson was born on the seventeenth of 
May, 1782, on the estate Hesthammer in Tysvaer 
Parish, Province of Ryfylke. In 1820 we find him in 
Stavanger, where William Allen, an English Quaker, 
was then organizing a Quaker society. In 1821 
Kleng Peerson and a certain Knud Olson Eide were, 
as we have seen, commissioned, it appears, by the 
Quakers to go to America and examine the possibil- 
ity of organizing a Norwegian colony there. The 
two explorers secured work in New York City, but 
Knud Eide fell ill and died not long after, and Peer- 
son went west alone in quest of a suitable location 
for a colony. Just how far west he may have come 
on this first journey is not known. After some 
time he decided upon Orleans County on the shores 
of the Ontario as the best place to plant his colony, 
and in 1824 he returned to Norway. We have noted 
already the results of Peerson 's mission. When 
Lars Larson's party prepared to go to America 
Kleng Peerson also left, but he did not take passage 
in Restaurationen. It seems that he embarked by 
way of Gothenburg and was in New York to receive 
the sloopers upon their arrival. 

It would be natural to suppose that Peerson did 
not go alone from Stavanger when he returned to 
America via Gothenburg in 1825. After much in- 
quiry I have also succeeded in discovering the name 
of one man, who, with his family, accompanied Peer- 



50 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

son that year. This man was Bjom Bjornson from 
Stavanger, a cousin of Kleng Peerson; he brought 
his wife and several children with him, but left two 
girl twins, born in May of that year, with a relative 
who then lived in Tjensvold, near Stavanger. Fur- 
ther facts about this family will be given in the 
chapter on Chicago. 

As Peerson seems to play no role in the found- 
ing of the Orleans County settlement, I shall leave 
him here. There will be occasion to speak briefly of 
him again later in connection with the second Nor- 
wegian settlement. I wish to add a few words here 
about Lars Larson, however. He and his family 
located in Rochester, where he became a builder of 
canal boats, prospered; and kept in close touch 
with immigrant Norwegians during the two decades 
of his life there. His home became a kind of Mecca 
for hosts of intending settlers in the New World. 
Larson died by accident on a canal boat in Novem- 
ber, 1845, but his widow lived till October, 1887. 
They had eight children, of whom the first one, Mar- 
garet Allen, was born on the Atlantic Ocean, Sep- 
tember second, 1825. Of her and others of Lars 
Larson's descendants I shall speak briefly below. 
We shall now return to the settlers in Orleans Coun- 
ty, New York. 

The colony was in many respects unfortunate; 
it cannot be said to have prospered and has never 
played any im])ortant part as a colony in Norwe- 
gian-American history. But it is important as be- 



FIRST SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA 51 

ing the first, and also as being the parent of a very 
large and progressive Norwegian settlement found- 
ed in 1834-35 in La Salle County, Illinois, of which 
more below. And yet the economic conditions of 
the Quaker immigrants gradually became better and 
the future looked more promising. They felt now 
that America offered many advantages to the able 
and the capable, and they began writing encourag- 
ing letters to relatives and friends in the old coun- 
try, urging them to seek their fortune here. As a 
result there was, if not a large, at any rate a fairly 
constant emigration of individuals and families from 
Stavanger and adjacent region during the following 
eight or nine years, although few seem to have come 
before 1829. In this year, e. g., came Gudmund 
Sandsberg (b. 1787) from Hjelmeland, in Ryfylke, 
Norway, and his wife Marie and three children, 
Bertha, Anna, and Torbjor. 

Passage was secured in the beginning for the 
most part with American sailships carrying Swedish 
iron from Gothenburg. But as this was attended 
by much uncertainty, often necessitating several 
weeks of waiting, the intending emigrants began to 
go to Hamburg, where German emigration by means 
of regular going American packet ships had already 
begun. Here, however, another difficulty met them. 
The already somewhat heavy emigration at this 
port made it necessary to order passage several 
weeks ahead in order to insure accommodations, 
and failing in this, the emigrant was forced to wait 



52 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

there until the next packet boat should sail. And 
so it came about that many of the early Norwegian 
immigrants to America came by way of Havre, 
France, where passage was always certain, emigra- 
tion from this point being as yet very limited. 

Among those who came via Gothenburg was 
Gjert Hovland, a farmer from Hardanger, who left 
Norway with his family on the twenty-fourth of 
June, 1831, sailed from Gothenburg June thirtieth 
and arrived in New York September eighteenth. He 
does not seem to have gone directly to Kendall, for 
we find him soon after the owner of fifty acres of 
forest land in Morris County, New Jersey. 

Gjert Hovland seems to be the first one from 
the province of Hardanger to emigrate to America. 
Other emigrants during these years are : Christian 
Olson, who came in 1829, settling in Kendall ; Knut 
Evenson, wife and daughter Katherine, who emi- 
grated in 1831 in the same ship by which Hovland 
came; and Ingebret Larson Narvig from Tysvaer 
Parish, Ryfylke, who came in 1831 and two years 
later located in Michigan. It seems probable that 
also Johan Nordboe and wife from Ringebo, in Gud- 
brandsdalen, Norway, came to Orleans County in 
1832. Nordboe was the first to emigrate from Gud- 
brandsdalen, a province from which actual immigra- 
tion did not begin until sixteen years later. 

Norwegian immigrants who came during these 
years generally located in Orleans County, but rarely 
remained there permanently. The northwestern 



FIRST SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA 53 

states were just then beginning to be opened up to 
settlers. At this time migration from the eastern 
states was directed particularly to Illinois. Good 
government land could be had here for $1.25 an acre. 
The very heavily wooded land that the Norwegian 
immigrants in Orleans County had purchased proved 
very difficult of improvement, and many began to 
think of moving to a more favorable locality. 

In 1833 Kleng Peerson, who seems to have lived 
in Kendall at this time, made a journey to the West, 
evidently for the purpose of finding a suitable site 
for a new settlement. He was accompanied by In 
gebret Larson Narvig as far as Erie, Monroe County, 
Michigan, where the latter remained, Peerson con- 
tinuing the journey farther west. After several 
months of wandering across Michigan, and down into 
Ohio and Indiana, he at last arrived at Chicago, then 
a village of about twenty huts. The marshes of 
Chicago did not appeal to Peerson and he went to 
Milwaukee, but the reports he received of the end- 
less forests of Wisconsin soon drove him back again 
into Illinois. After several days' journey on foot 
again west of Chicago he at last found a spot which 
seemed to him as if providentially designated as the 
proper locality for his western colony. The place 
was immediately south of the present village of 
Norway in La Salle County. His choice made, Peer- 
son returned to Orleans County, having covered over 
2,000 miles on foot since he left. 

Peerson 's selection was universally approved 



54 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

and a considerable number of the Kendall settlers 
decided to move west. Among those of the sloop- 
ers who remained in New York I shall here name: 
Ole Johnson, Henrik C. Hervig and Andrew Stange- 
land, who, however, some years later bought a tract 
of land in Noble County, Indiana; Lars Olson lo- 
cated in New York City, and, as we have seen, Lars 
Larson settled in Rochester ; Nels Erikson went back 
to Norway, while Oien Thompson and Thomas Mad- 
land died in Kendall in 1826, and Cornelius Hers- 
dal died there in 1833. 



CHAPTER V 

The Founding of the Fox River Settlement. Per- 
sonal Notes on Some of the Founders. 

In the spring of 1834 Jacob Anderson Slogvig, 
Knnd Anderson Slogvig, Gudmund Haugaas, Tlior- 
sten Olson Bjaaland, Nels Thompson, ^^ Andrew 
(Endre) Dalil, and Kleng Peerson left for La Salle 
County; they became, therefore, as far as we know, 
the first Norwegian settlers in Illinois, and indeed in 
the Northwest, barring Ingebret Narvig, who had lo- 
cated in Michigan the year before. These men se- 
lected their land and perfected their purchase as 
soon as it came into market the following spring. The 
first two to buy land were Jacob Slogvig and Gud- 
mund Haugaas, whose purchase is recorded under 
June fifteenth, 1835, the former of eighty acres, the 
latter one hundred and sixty acres, both in that part 
of what was then called Mission Township, but later 
came to be Rutland. On June seventeenth, Kleng 
Peerson 's purchase of eighty acres is recorded, as 
also that of his sister, Carrie Nelson, widow of Cor- 
nelius Nelson Hersdal, namely, eighty acres of land 

31 Nels Thompson had married Bertha Caroline, the widow of 
Oien Thompson in 1827. She had three daughters by her first hus- 
band: Sara, born 1818; Anna, born 1819; and Caroline, born 1825 
(died in Eochester, N. Y., 1826). Nels Thompson and wife had two 
children: Serena, born 1828; Abraham, born 1830; and Caroline, born 
in 1833. 



56 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

bought for her by Peerson. For this date are also 
recorded the purchases of Thorsten Olson Bjaaland, 
eighty acres, Nels Thompson, one hundred and sixty 
acres, in what later became Miller Township. 

In 1835 Daniel Rossadal and family, Nels Nel- 
son Hersdal, George Johnson, and Carrie Nelson 
Hersdal with family of seven children moved to La 
Salle County. Nels Hersdal secured six hundred 
and forty acres in exchange for one hundred acres 
he owned in Orleans County, New York. The sloop- 
er Thomas Madland, as we have seen, died in 1826 ; 
his widow and family of seven also moved to Illi- 
nois in 1831. Gjert Hovland came in 1835, and on 
June seventeenth purchased one hundred and sixty 
acres of land in Miller Township. Nels Hersdal pur- 
chased on September fifth Thorsten Bjaaland 's 
eighty acres in the same townsliip; the latter, how- 
ever, bought a hundred and sixty acres again on Jan- 
uary sixteenth, 1836, in the same locality. The 
record of these purchases was copied by E. B. An- 
derson and printed in his book. First Chapter, etc., 
cited above and also in Strand's History of the Nor- 
wegians of Illinois, page 75. 

Knud Slogvig, who, as we see, came in 1834, did 
not buy land but somewhat later returned east and 
in 1835 went back to Norway. There he married a 
sister of the slooper, Ole Olson Hetletvedt and, as we 
shall have occasion to note under causes of emigra- 
tion, became largely instrumental in bringing about 
the emigration of 1836. Baldwin's History of La 



FOX RIVER SETTLEMENT 57 

Salle County also states, page 74, that Oliver Ca- 
nuteson, ^^ Oliver Knutson, ^- Christian Olson, and 
Ole Olson Hetletvedt came to the county in 1834, 
but the date seems to be uncertain. "With regard 
to Christian Olson the fact seems rather to be 
that he came in 1836 or possibly not till 1837, while 
also Hetletvedt seems to be dated about two years 
too early here. Among those who came in 1836 
according to apparently reliable records are: Ole 
Olson Hetletvedt and Gudmund Sandsberg. 

Relative to the founders of the Fox River Set- 
tlement, as that of La Salle County came to be called, 
I wish to add here the following facts of personal 
history: Gudmund Haugaas, one of the two first 
to record the purchase of land, had married Julia, 
the daughter of Thomas Madland, in Orleans County 
in 1827. She died in Rutland Township, La Salle 
County, in 1846 ; and he later married Caroline Her- 
vig, a sister of Henrik Hervig (Harwick). He had 
ten children by his first wife. In Illinois he joined 
the Mormon Church and became an elder in that 
church, practicing medicine at the same time, and, 
it is said, with much success. He died of the chol- 
era on the homestead near Norway in July, 1849; 
his widow, Caroline, survived him three years." 

Jacob Slogvig married Serena, daughter of 



32 Or are these two the same person? 

33 Mrs. R. W. Bower of Sheridan, Illinois, is a daughter of 
Haugaas and his wife Caroline. Other children of hia are Daniel 
Haugaas in Henderson, Iowa, and Mrs. Isabel Lewis, Emington, 
Hlinois, and Thomas Haugaas. 



58 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Thomas Madland, in March, 1831. He became 
one of the founders of the Norwegian settlement in 
Lee County, Iowa, in 1840 (see below), later went to 
California, where he died in May, 1864. The widow 
lived until about 1897. Some time before her death 
she had been living at the home of her son, Andrew 
J. Anderson, at San Diego, California. 

Mrs. Carrie Nelson had seven children, of whom 
Anne, Nels, Inger, and Martha were born in Norway ; 
Sarah, Peter, and Amelia were born at Kendall, New 
York. Carrie Nelson died in 1848. The son, Nels 
Nelson, born 1816, married Catherine Iverson about 
1840; he died in Sheridan, Illinois, in August, 
1893, as the last male member of the sloop party, 
being survived by his widow and four of twelve chil- 
dren. The daughter Inger was in 1836 married to 
John S. Mitchell, of Ottawa, Illinois; Martha 
married Beach Fallows, a settler of 1835, and Sarah 
married in 1849 Canute Marsett, an immigrant of 
1837, who some years later became a Mormon 
bishop at Ephraim, Utah. Their oldest son, Peter 
Cornelius Marsett, born at Salt Lake City June sec- 
ond, 1850, was the first child born of Norwegian par- 
ents in Utah. •''* Peter C. Nelson, the youngest son of 
Carrie Nelson, born 1830, later settled in Larned, 
Kansas, where he died in 1904. Sara Thompson, 
oldest daughter of Oien Thompson, and born 1818, 
married George Olmstead in 1857 in La Salle County ; 
he died in 1849, and in 1855 she married William W. 

34 For these facts I am indebted to R. B. Anderson, as also for 
other details of the personal history of the slooper 's descendants. 



FOX RIVER SETTLEMENT 59 

Ricliey. Mrs. Richey settled in Guthrie Center, 
Iowa, in 1882, where she lived until recently. Ben- 
son C. Olmsted, Charles B. Olmsted and Will 
F. Richey of Guthrie Center, Iowa, are sons of Mrs. 
Sara Richey. Nels Thompson died in La Salle Coun- 
ty, Illinois, in July, 1863, Daniel Rossadal and his 
wife. Bertha, both died in La Salle County in 1854. 
Nels Nelson Hersdal was born in July, 1800, and his 
wife. Bertha, in May, 1804 ; they were married a few 
months before the departure of the sloop. He, ''Big 
Nels", as he was called, came to Illinois in 1835, re- 
turned to New York and did not bring his family to 
Illinois until 1846, though he moved west before. He 
lived until 1886, his wife having died in 1882. Peter 
Nelson and Ira Nelson of La Salle County, are their 
sons. George Johnson died from cholera in 1849. 

Andrew Dahl went to Utah in the fifties, 
being one of the earliest pioneers of that state. A 
son of his, A. S. Anderson, was a member of the Utah 
Constitutional Convention in 1895. Ole Hetle- 
tvedt, who located at Niagara Falls, not therefore in 
Orleans County, had three sons, Porter C, Soren L. 
and James W. The first of these, born 1831, became 
captain and later colonel in Company F, 36th Regi- 
ment, Illinois Volunteers, in the War of the Rebel- 
lion, and was Acting Brigadier General when he was 
killed in the Battle of Franklin (Tenn.). Soren Ol- 
son was killed in the Battle of Murfreesboro. James 
Olson, who also went to the front, lived to return 
to his home after the war. Porter Olson lies buried 



60 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

at Newark, Illinois, where a fitting monument adorns 
his grave. Finally I wish to add that Margaret 
Allen, the ''sloop girl" born on the Atlantic, daugh- 
ter of Lars Larson, married John Atwater in Eo- 
chester, New York, in 1857. They afterwards mov- 
ed to Chicago, where he died in the early nineties, 
while Mrs. Atwater is, I believe, still living at West- 
ern Springs, Cook County. We shall now return to 
our settlement in La Salle County. 

We have given above a brief account of the 
founding of the Fox Eiver settlement. Out of that 
nucleus of about thirty persons, whom we know to 
have come there in 1834-35 grew up one of the larg- 
est and most prosperous of rural communities in 
the country. The settlement developed rapidly, be- 
fore many years extending into Kendall, Grundy 
and DeKalb counties and becoming a distributing 
point in the westward march of Norwegian immigra- 
gration during the following years. The settlement 
in Orleans County, New York, ceased to grow, the 
objective point of immigrants from Norway had 
been changed and the Fox River region received 
large accessions, especially during the year 1836. 

Immigration from Norway which heretofore had 
been more or less sporadic, in which individuals and 
very small groups are found to take part, now 
enters upon a new phase, begins in fact to assume 
the form of organized effort. The year 1836 inaug- 
urated this change, while in 1837 there was some- 
thing approaching an exodus from certain localities 
in Western Norway. The desire to emigrate to 



FOX RIVER SETTLEMENT 61 

America had also now spread far beyond the original 
center, at Stavanger; the source of emigration was 
transferred to a more northerly region and with 
it, as we have had occasion to observe above, 
the course of settlement in this country is not only 
directed to a more westerly region, Illinois, but also 
soon extends into the northern border counties of Illi- 
nois and into southern and southeastern Wisconsin. 
As this increased immigration is historically as- 
sociated with the names of two of those whom we 
have already met as pioneers in New York, New 
Jersey and Illinois, a brief account of their share 
in the promotion of immigration from Norway will 
be in place. These two are Gjert Hovland and 
Knud Slogvig. We have seen that the former of 
these came to America in 1831, being probably the 
first immigrant from Hardanger. His name de- 
serves special mention as an early promoter of emi- 
gration from southwestern Norway, especially from 
his own province. He was a man of much enlight- 
enment and liberalmindedness to whom America's 
free institutions made a strong appeal. He wrote 
letters home to friends urging emigration and these 
were circulated far and wide. In one of these letters 
from Morris County, New Jersey, 1835, he writes 
enthusiastically of American laws, and he contrasts 
its spirit of liberty with the oppressions of the class 
aristocracy in Norway. He advised all who could 
do so to come to America, where it was permitted 
to settle wherever one chose, he says. Hovland 



62 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

was well known in several parishes in the Province 
of South Bergenhus, and hundreds of copies of his 
letters were circulated there ; they aroused the great- 
est interest among the people and were no small fac- 
tor in leading many in that region to emigrate in 
1836-37. 

Thus it may be noted specifically that in 
1836 a lay preacher travelling in Voss had in his 
possession one of Gjert Hovland's letters, which let- 
ter was read by Nils Rothe, Nils Bolstad and John H, 
Bjorgo and others. These three since said that it 
was the reading of Hovland's letter which induced 
them to immigrate. ^^ Gjert Hovland, as we have 
seen, came to Illinois in 1835. His purchase of one 
hundred and sixty acres of land in the present Mil- 
ler Township was recorded on June seventeenth of 
that year, the same date that the purchases of Kleng 
Peerson, Nels Thompson and Thorsten Bjaaland 
were recorded. Gjert Hovland lived there till his 
death in 1870. 

The other name, that I referred to, is that of 
Knud Anderson Slogvig, who undoubtedly was the 
chief promoter of immigration in 1836. He had 
come in the sloop in 1825, and, as we have seen, 
settled in La Salle County in 1834. In 1835 he re- 
turned to Skjold, Norway, and there married a sis- 
ter of Ole 0. Hetletvedt, the slooper whom we find 
as one of the early pioneers of La Salle County. 
While there, people came to talk with him about 



35 First Chapter, p. 331. 



FOX RIVER SETTLEMENT 63 

America from all parts of southwestern Norway; 
and a large number in and about Stavanger decided 
to emigrate. Slogvig's return may be said to have 
started the "America-fever" in Norway, though it 
took some years before it reached the central and 
the eastern parts of the country. It was his inten- 
tion to return to America in 1836, and a large party 
was preparing to emigrate with him. 

In the spring of that year the two brigs. Nor den 
and Den Norshe Klippe, were fitted out from Stav- 
anger. The former sailed on the first Wednesday 
after Pentecost, arriving in New York July twelfth, 
1836. The latter sailed a few weeks later. They 
carried altogether two hundred immigrants, most of 
whom went directly to La Salle County. Of these 
two brigs I shall speak again in a subsequent chap- 
ter. 

I have above given some of the facts of Knud 
Slogvig's personal history. Having already spoken 
of one element in the cause of emigration I believe 
it will be in place to give a fuller account at this 
point of the various general and special factors that 
have been instrumental in bringing about the com- 
ing to America of such a large part of the population 
of Norway in the 19tli century. 



CHAPTER VI 

Causes of Emigration from Norway. General 
Factors, Economic. 

What are the causes that have brought about the 
exodus from Norway and in general from the Scan- 
dinavian countries in the 19th century? The ques- 
tion is not a simple one to answer; for the causes 
have been many and varied, and it would be impossi- 
ble in the following pages to discuss all the circum- 
stances and influences that have operated to pro- 
mote the northern emigration and directed it to 
America. Perhaps there is something in the highly 
developed migratory instinct of Indo-European 
peoples. Especially has this instinct characterized 
the Germanic branch, whether it be Goth or Vandal, 
Anglo-Saxon, Viking or Norman,^^ or their descend- 
ants, the Teutonic peoples of modern times, by whom 
chiefly the United States has been peopled and de- 
veloped. 

Of tangible motives, one that has every- 
where been a fundamental factor in promoting em- 
igration from European countries in modern times 
has been the prospect of material betterment. 
Where no barriers have been put against the emi- 
gration of the poor or the ambitious, unless special 
causes have arisen to create discontent with one's 



36 That is, ' ' Northman. ' ' 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 65 

condition, the extent to which European countries 
have contributed to our immigrant population may 
be measured fairly closely by the economic condi- 
tions at home. As far as the Northern countries 
are concerned I would class all these causes under 
two heads : the first will comprise all those condi- 
tions, natural and artificial, that can be summarized 
under the term economic; the second will include 
a number of special circumstances or motives which 
may vary somewhat for the three countries, indeed 
often for the locality and the individual. 

First then we may consider the causes which 
arise from economic conditions. These are well il- 
lustrated by the Scandinavian countries, slightly 
modified in each case by the operation of the special 
causes. Norway is a land of mountains, these mak- 
ing up in the fact fifty-nine per cent of its total 
area, while forty-four per cent of the soil of Sweden 
is unproductive. The winters are long and severe, 
the cold weather frequently sets in too early for the 
crops to ripen ; with crop failure comes lack of work 
for the laboring classes, and, burdened by heavy 
taxation, as was the Norwegian farmer only too 
often in the middle of the last century, debt and im- 
poverishment for the holders of the numerous en- 
cumbered smaller estates. In Norway, especially, 
the rewards of labor are meagre and the opportuni- 
ties for material betterment small.-"' ''Hard times" 
and the inability of the country to support the rapid- 

37 A great change for the better has been taking place during 
the last few years. 



66 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ly increasing population has, then, been a most 
potent factor.^^ The same will hold true of Sweden, 
though in a somewhat less degree. Denmark is 
better able to support a population of one hundred 
and forty-eight to the square mile than Sweden one 
of twenty-eight or Norway one of eighteen. ^^ 

In this connection compare above the statistics 
of immigration from the three countries, which are 
much lower for Denmark than for Norway and 
Sweden. The Danes at home are a contented peo- 
ple, and it is noticeable also that it is they who are 
most conservative here, who foster the closest rela- 
tion with the old home, and who consequently become 
Americanized last. The Norwegians are the most 
discontented, are readiest for a change, are quickest 
to try the new; and it is they who most readily break 
the bonds that bind them to their native country, 
who most quickly adapt themselves to the conditions 
here, and who most rapidly become Americanized. 

Professor E. B. Anderson, in his book on the 
early Norwegian immigration"**^ puts religious per- 
secution as the primary cause of emigration from 
Norway. I cannot possibly believe that even in the 

38 Thus the failure of crops and the famine in Northern Sweden, 
Finland, and Norway in 1902 was followed by a vastly increased 
immigration from these sections. See above page 28. Compare 
Table II, Appendix. 

39 The area and population of the three countries are: — Sweden, 
area 172,876 sq. m., population in 1901, 5,175,228; Norway, area 
124,129, population in 1900, 2,239,880; Denmark, area 15,360, popula- 
tion in 1901, 2,447,441. 

40 First Chapter, etc. 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 67 

immigration of the first half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury religious persecution was, except in a few cases, 
the primary or even a very important cause in the 
Scandinavian countries. In conversation with and 
in numerous letters from pioneers and their descend- 
ants, especially in Iowa and Wisconsin, I have found 
that the hope of larger returns for one's labor is 
everywhere given as the main motive, sometimes as 
the only one. Whether it be the pioneers of 
La Salle County, Illinois, in the thirties, those of 
Rock or Dane counties, Wisconsin, in the forties, 
or the Norwegian settlers of Clayton and Winne- 
shiek counties, Iowa, in the late forties and the 
fifties; the causes are everywhere principally econ- 
omic. But letters written by pioneers and by those 
f about to emigrate testify amply to the fact that it 
was the hard times that was the chief cause. And 
the same applies almost as generally to the Swedes ; 
among the Danes the economic factor has not oper- 
ated so extensively, though here, also, it was the pre- 
ponderating cause. 

A Norwegian journal, Billed-Magazin, published 
in Chicago in 1869-70 and edited by Professor Svein 
Nil sen, offers much that throws light on this ques- 
tion. It contains brief accounts of the early Nor- 
wegian immigration and the earliest settlements, a 
regular column of news from the Scandinavian coun- 
tries, interviews with pioneers, etc. In one inter- 
view, Ole Nattestad, who sailed in 1837 from Vaegli, 
Numedal, and became the founder of the fourth Nor- 



68 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

wegian settlement in America, that of Jefferson 
Prairie in Eock County, Wisconsin, and the neigh- 
boring Boone County in Illinois, describes his exper- 
ience as a farmer in Numedal and how the difficulty 
of making any headwiay finally drove him to emi- 
grate to America.'*^ The statement of another pio- 
neer I quote in its entirety.'*^ It is that of John Nel- 
son Luraas, who came from Tin in Telemarken, to 
Muskego, Wisconsin, in 1839, and in 1843 moved to 
Dane County, Wisconsin. He says : 

I was my father's oldest son, and consequently heir to 
the Luraas farm. It was regarded as one of the best in that 
neighborhood, but there was a $1,400 mortgage on it. I had 
worked for my father until I was twenty-five years old, and 
had had no opportunity of getting money. It was plain to 
me that I would have a hard time of it, if I should take the 
farm with the debt resting on it, pay a reasonable amoimt to 
my brothers and sisters, and assume the care of my aged 
father. I saw to my horror how one farm after the other 
fell into the hands of the lendsman and other money-lenders, 
and this increased my dread of attempting farming. But I 
got married and had to do something. Then it occurred to 
me that the best thing might be to emigrate to America. I 
was encouraged in this purpose by letters written by Nor- 
wegian settlers in Illinois who had lived two years in Amer- 
ica. Such were the causes that led me to emigrate and I 
presume the rest of our company were actuated by similar 
motives. '^■^ 



41 Billed - Magaein, 1869, pp. 82-83. 
^2 Billed-Magazin, 1869, pp. 6-7. 

43 In 1868, Mr. Luraas moved to Webster County, Iowa, returning 
to Dane County, Wisconsin, in 1873. I knew him in the early nineties 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 69 

In a letter written by Andreas Sandsberg at 
Hellen, Norway, September twelfth, 1831, to Gud- 
mnnd Sandsberg in Kendall, New York, the former 
complains of the hard times in Norway. In the 
spring of 1836 the second party of emigrants from 
Stavanger County came to America. On the 14th 
of May of that year Andreas Sandsberg wrote his 
brother Gudmund in America as follows : 

A considerable number of people are now getting ready 
to go to America from this Amt. Two brigs are to depart 
from Stavanger in about eight days from now, and will 
carry these people to America, and if good reports come 
from them, the number of emigrants will doubtless be still 
larger next year. A pressing and general lack of money 
entering into every branch of industry, stops or at least 
hampers business and makes it difficult for many people to 
earn the necessaries of life. While this is the case on this 
side of the Atlantic there is hope for abundance on the 
other, and this I take it, is the chief cause of this growing 
disposition to emigrate. '*'* 

Ole Olson Menes, who came to America in 1845, 
is cited in Billed-Magazin, 1870, page 130, as follows, 
illustrating the prominence of the economic cause 
nine years later : 

The emigrants of the preceding year (1844) . . . . 
wrote home .... and told of the fertility of the soil, 
the cheap prices of land and of good wages. In a letter 
which I received from Iver Hove, he writes that there they 

as a well-to-do retired farmer living in Stoughton, Wisconsin. He 
died in 1894. 

44 Letter copied from the original by R. B. Anderson in 1896 and 
printed in First Chapter, pp. 135-136. 



70 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

raise thirty-five bushels of wheat per acre, and the grass is 
BO thick that one can easily cut enough in one day for winter 
feed for the cow. Such things fell to our liking, and many 
looked forward with eager longing to the distant West, 
which was pictured as the Eden that loving Provi'dence had 
destined as a home for the workingman of Norway, so 
oppressed with cares and want. 

Of those here cited, Nattestad was from Nume- 
dal, Luraas from Telemarken, Menes from Sogn, 
while Sandsberg came from Ryfylke. But the con- 
ditions were the same also in other provinces. In 
1844, Hans C. Tollefsrude and wife emigrated from 
Land. Of the cause of his emigrating and that of 
early emigration from Land in general, his son 
Christian H. Tollefsrude of Rolf e, Iowa, writes me : 

The causes were, no personal means and no prospect 
even securing a home in their native district, Torpen, 
Nordre Land (letter of July 27, 1904). 

Eev. Abraham Jacobson of Decorah, Iowa, a 
pioneer himself, writes : 

Reasons for emigrating were mostly economic, very few 

if any religious Wages here were at the very 

least double that in Norway, and generally much more than 
that. 

Of the emigration from Ringsaker, I may cite 
Simon Simerson of Belmond, Iowa : 

The causes were economic. In the case of my parents, 
they came here to create the home that they saw no chance 
of securing in the mother country. (Letter of Oct. 12, 
1904.) 

Similar evidence might be adduced for other 
districts and for all the older settlements through- 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 71 

out the Northwest. At a meeting held at the home 
of Ole 0. Flom in Stoughton, Wisconsin, on July 
twenty-eighth, 1908, when the present writer read a 
paper on ^' Early Norwegian Immigration," testi- 
mony to the same effect was given by old pioneers 
there present. There is no need of further multi- 
plying the evidence. 

A highly developed spirit of independence has 
always been a dominant element in the Scandinavian 
character, — I have reference here particularly to 
his desire for personal independence, that is, in- 
dependence in his condition in life. Nothing is so 
repugnant to him as indebtedness to others and de- 
pendence on others. An able-bodied Scandinavian 
who was a burden to his fellows was well-nigh un- 
heard of. By the right of primogeniture the pater- 
nal estate would go to the oldest son. The families 
being frequently large, the owning of a home was to 
a great many practically an impossibility under 
wage conditions as they were in the North in the 
first half and more of the preceding century. 

Thus the Scandinavian farmer's son, with his 
love of personal independence and his strong inher- 
ent desire to own a home, finding himself so cir- 
cumstanced in his native country that there was 
little hope of his being able to realize this ambition 
except in the distant uncertain future, listens, with 
a willing ear to descriptions of America, with its 
quick returns and its great opportunities. And so 
he decides to emigrate. And this he is free to do 



72 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

for tlie govermnent puts no barrier upon his emi- 
grating. This trait has impelled many a Scandinav- 
ian to come and settle in America ; and it is a trait 
that is the surest guarantee of the character of his 
citizenship. Here, too, a social factor merits men- 
tion. 

Wliile the nobility was abolished in Norway in 
1814, the lines between the upper and lower classes, 
the wealthy and the poor, were tightly drawn and 
social classes were well defined. And while Norway 
is today the most democratic country in Europe, 
and Sweden and Denmark are also thoroughly lib- 
eral (in part through the influence of America and 
American-Scandinavians), a titled aristocracy still 
exists in these countries. The extreme deference to 
those in superior station or position that custom 
and existing conditions enforced upon those in 
humbler condition was repugnant to them. Not in- 
frequently have pioneers given this as one cause for 
emigrating in connection with that of economic ad- 
vantage. 



CHAPTER Vn 

Causes of Emigration Continued. Special Factors. 
Religion as a Cause. Emigration Agents. 

In the class of special causes which have in- 
fluenced the Scandinavian emigration, political op- 
pression has operated only in the case of the Danes 
in Southern Jutland/^ 

Military service, which elsewhere has often played 
such an important part in promoting emigration, has, 
in the Scandinavian countries, been only a minor fac- 
tor, the period of service required being very short. 
Nevertheless it has in not a few cases been a second- 
ary cause for emigrating. Those with whom I have 
spoken who have given this as their motive have, 



45 As a result of the Dano-Prussian war of 1864 Jutland below 
Skodborghus became a province of Prussia. The greatly increased 
taxes that immediately followed and the restrictions imposed by the 
Prussian government upon the use of the Danish language, as well as 
other oppressive measures that formed a part of the general plan of 
the Prussianizing of Sleswick-Holstein, drove large numbers of Danes 
away from their homes, and most of these came to the United States. 
In notes and correspondence from Denmark in Scandinavian-Ameri- 
can papers during these years complaints regarding such regulations 
constantly appear, and figures of emigration of Danes ' ' who did not 
wish to be Prussians ' ' are unusually large for this period ; for ex- 
ample in the foreign column of the Billed-Magazin. The United 
States statistics also show a sudden increase in the Danish immi- 
gration during the sixties and the early seventies. From 1850- 
1861 not more than 3,983 had emigrated from Denmark; while in 
the thirteen years from 1862 to 1874 the number reached 30,978. 



74 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

however, been mostly Norwegians and Swedes; but 
none of those who belong to the earlier period of 
emigration give their desire to escape military ser- 
vice as a cause. 

Religious persecution has played a part in some 
cases, especially in Norway and Sweden. The state 
church is the Lutheran, but every sect has been tol- 
erated since the middle of the century, in Norway 
since 1845. While few countries have been freer 
from the evil of active persecution because of relig- 
ious belief, intolerance and religious narrowness 
have not been wanting. In the beginning of the 
nineteenth century, the followers of the lay preach- 
er, Hans Nielsen Hauge, in Norway were everywhere 
persecuted. Hauge himself was imprisoned in 
Christiania for eight years. And the Jansenists in 
Helsingland, Sweden, were in the forties subjected 
to similar persecution. Thus Eric Jansen was ar- 
rested several times for conducting religious meet- 
ings between 1842-1846, — though it must in fairness 
be admitted that his first arrest was undoubtedly 
provoked by the extreme procedure of the dissenters 
themselves. After having been put in prison repeat- 
edly, Jansen embarked for America in 1846 and be- 
came the founder of the communistic colony of fol- 
lowers at Bishopshille, ^^ Henry County, Hlinois. No 

46 So named from Biskopskulla, Jansen 's native place in Sweden. 
See article by Major John Swainson on "The Swedish Colony at 
Bishopshill, Illinois," in Nelson's Scandinavians, 1, p. 142. This 
article gives an excellent account of the founding of the Bishopshill 
settlement and .Jansen 's connection with it. See also American Com- 
munities by Wm. Alfred Hinds, 1902, pp. 300-320. 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 75 

such organized emigration took place among the 
Hangians, but we have no means of knowing to what 
extent individual emigration of the followers of 
Hauge took place during the three decades immedi- 
ately after his death. The well-known Elling Eiel- 
son, a lay preacher and an ardent Haugian, emi- 
grated in 1839 to Fox River, La Salle County, Illi- 
nois, and many of those who believed in the methods 
of Hauge and Eielson came to America in the fol- 
lowing years. 

It was persecution also that drove many Scan- 
dinavian Moravians to America in 1740 and 1747. 
Mora\aan societies had been formed in Christiania 
in 1737, in Copenhagen in 1739, in Stockholm in 
1740, and in Bergen in 1740.^^ In 1735 German 
Moravians from Herrnhut, Saxony, established a 
colony at Savannah, Georgia.'*^ In this colony there 
seem to have been some Danes and Norwegians. 
In 1740 a permanent colony was located at Bethle- 
hem, Pennsylvania, and in 1747 one at Bethabara, 
North Carolina. Persecuted Norwegian, Swedish, 
and Danish Moravians took part in the founding of 
both these colonies. 

As we have seen, the first Norwegian settlement 
in America was established in Kendall, Orleans 
County, New York, in 1825. It has been claimed that 
the ''sloopers" were driven to emigrate by perse- 
cution at home. "^^ Another writer has shown that the 



47 Decorah-Posten, September 9, 1904, p. 5. See also above p. 37. 

48 R. B. Anderson is emphatic in this view. Pages 45-131 of his 
First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration are devoted to a discussion 



76 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

only one of the Stavanger Quakers who suffered for 
his belief prior to 1826 was Elias Tastad, and he, it 
seems, did not emigrate/' The leader of the emi- 
grants in Restaurationen, Lars Larson i Jeilane, had 
spent one year in London in the employ of the noted 
English Quaker, William Allen. In 1818, Stephen 
Grellet, a French nobleman, who had become a 
Quaker in America, and William Allen preached in 
Stavanger/^ The Quakers of Stavanger were of 
the poorest of the people. It is highly probable, as 
another writer states,^^ that Grellet, while there, 
suggested to them that they emigrate to America 
where they could better their condition in material 
things and at the same time practice their religion 
without violating the laws of the country. The main 
motive was therefore probably economic. 

It is perfectly clear to me that not very many of 
the Orleans County colonists were devout Quakers; 
for we soon find them wandering apart into various 
other churches. Some returned to Lutheranism; 
those who went west became mostly Methodists or 
Mormons; others did not join any church; while the 
descendants of those who remained are to-day Meth- 
odists. The Orleans County Quakers do not seem 
to have even erected a meeting-house ; and in Scan- 



of the sloop "Restaurationen" and the Quaker Colony in Orleans 
County. 

49 Nelson's History of Scandinavians, 1901, p. 133. 

50 B. L. Wick, in The Friends, Philadelphia, 1894, according to 
Nelson, p. 134. I have not been able to secure a copy of the above 
article, therefore cannot here state the arguments, or cite more fully. 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 77 

dinavian settlements a church, however humble, is, 
next to a home, the first thought.^^ Nevertheless 
the Quakers of Stavanger did suffer annoyances, 
and it must be remembered that the leader of the 
expedition and the owner of the sloop was a devout 
Quaker,^^ as were also at least two other leading 
members of the party. Had it not been for these 
very men the party would probably not have emi- 
grated, at least not at that time. 

There was much persecution of the early con- 
verts to the Baptist faith in Denmark between 
1850-1860 ; and not a few of this sect emigrated. In 
1848 F. 0. Nilson, one of the early leaders of the 
Baptist Church in Sweden, was imprisoned and later 
banished from the country. He fled to Denmark, 
and in 1851 embarked for America. In the fifties 
Swedish Baptists in considerable numbers came to 
the United States because of persecution. There 
are, however, very few Norwegian Baptists, and I 
know of no cases where persecution drove Baptists 
to leave Norway. 

Proselyting of some non-Lutheran churches in 
Scandinavia has been the means of bringing many 
Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes to this country. In 
the fifties Moraion missionaries were especially ac- 

51 The reader who knows Bjomson's Synnove SolbaJcken will re- 
member the author's introduction of this feature in Chapter II, the 
first two pages. 

52 Lars Larson settled in Rochester where he could attend a 
Quaker church. The same is true of Ole Johnson, another of the 
"sloopers" who later settled in Kendall but finally returned to Roch- 
ester, where he died in 1877. 



78 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

tive in Denmark and Norway. Their efforts did not 
seem to be attended by much success in Norway, 
though not a few converts were made among the 
Norwegians in the early settlements in Illinois and 
Iowa, as in the Fox River Settlement. ^' In Den- 
mark, however, Mormon proselyting was more suc- 
cessful than in Norway. All those who accepted 
Mormonism emigrated to America of course, and 
most of them to Utah. In the years 1851, 1852, and 

1853 there emigrated fourteen, three, and thirty- 
two Danes, respectively, to this country. But in 

1854 the number rose to 691, and in the following- 
three years to 1,736. In 1850 there were in Utah two 
Danes; in 1870 there were 4,957. The first Norwe- 
gian to go to Utah probably was Henrik E. Sebbe, 
who came to America in 1836, and went to Utah in 
1848, where he became a Mormon.^^ 

In 1849 a Norwegian-American, 0. P. Peterson, 
first introduced Methodism in Norway.^"* After 

1855 a regular Methodist mission was established 
in Scandinavia under the supervision of a Danish- 
American, C. B. Willerup.^^ While the Methodist 



53 Some of the early Mormon leaders were Norwegians, however, 
as Bishop Canute Peterson (Marsett), of Ephraim, Utah, who came 
to America in 1837 from Hardanger, Norway. The slooper Gudmund 
Haugaas became an elder in the church of the Latter Day Saints in 
La Salle County, Illinois; he died in 1849 and was succeeded by his 
son Thomas Haugaas. 

54 See a brief account by Rev. N. M. Liljegren in Nelson's His- 
tory of Scandinavians, I, pp. 205-209. 

55 Methodism had been introduced into Sweden from England 
early in the century. 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 79 

churcli has not prospered in the Scandinavian coun- 
tries, especially in Denmark and Norway, there are 
large numbers of Methodists among the Scandina- 
vian immigrants in this country,^^ and the early con- 
gregations were recruited for a large part from 
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. 

The efforts of steamship companies and emigra- 
tion agents have been a powerful factor in promot- 
ing Scandinavian emigration. Through them lit- 
erature advertising in glowing terms the advantages 
of the New World was scattered far and wide in 
Scandinavia. Such literature often dealt with the 
prosperity of Scandinavians who had previously set- 
tled in America. Letters from successful settlers 
were often printed and distributed broadcast. The 
early immigrants from the North settled largely in 
Illinois, Wisconsin, and, a little later, in Iowa. As 
clearers of the forest and tillers of the soil they con- 
tributed their large share to the development of the 
country. None could better endure the hardships 
of pioneer life on the western frontier. Knowing 
this, many western states began to advertise their 
respective advantages in the Scandinavian coun- 
tries. 



56 By far the larger number, however, are Swedes. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Causes of Emigration continued. The Influence of 

Successful Pioneers. "America-letters." 

The Spirit of Adventure. Summary. 

Far more influential, however, than the factors 
just noted were the efforts put forth by successful 
immigrants to induce their relatives and friends to 
follow them. Numerous letters were written home 
praising American laws and institutions, and set- 
ting forth the opportunities here offered. These 
letters were read and passed around to friends. 
Many who had relatives in America would travel 
long distances to hear what the last *' America-let- 
ter" had to report. Among the early immigrants 
who did much in this way to promote emigration 
from their native districts was one whom we have 
already spoken of, Gjert Hovland. He wrote many 
letters home praising American institutions. These 
letters ''were transcribed and the copies distributed 
far and wide in the Province of Bergen ; and a large 
number were thus led to emigrate. ' ' " 

The interviews in Billed-Magazin contain 
statements from several among the early settlers 
on Koshkonong Prairie and the neighborhood of 
Stoughton which give evidence of the part that 
"America-letters" played in their emigration. On 

57 See Billed-Magazin, p. 74. 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 81 

page 123 occurs a statement of Gaute Ingbrigtson 
(Gulliksrud) who came from Tin in Telemarken in 
1843 and became one of the earliest pioneers of Dun- 
kirk Township in Dane County. He says : ' ' Two of 
my uncles and a brother emigrated in 1839. I, how- 
ever, remained at home with my father who was a 
farmer in the Parish of Tin. But then letters came 
with good news from America, and my relatives as 
well as other acquaintances on this side of the ocean 
were encouraged to emigrate. From this it came 
about that I and many others in my native district 
prepared for leaving in the spring of 1843. The party 
numbered about one hundred and twenty . . . . " 
We have already had occasion to refer to a let- 
ter received by Ole Menes of Stoughton in 1845. 
Ingbrigt Helle came from Kragero in 1845 and 
settled in the Town of Dunn. The ship he came on 
brought one hundred and forty immigrants and he 
mentions the fact that many had been induced to 
emigrate by letters from America, and he writes: 
* ' Such letters from America urging emigration was, 
as far as I can see, the thing that brought the major- 
ity of emigrants to bid farewell to Norway." Ole 
Knudson Dyrland, who emigrated from Siljord, 
Telemarken, in 1843, and became one of the earliest 
white settlers in Dunn Township, Dane County, testi- 
fying to the same fact, mentions Ole Knudson Tro- 
vatten as one who, through letters, exerted consider- 
able influence upon emigration in Telemarken (page 
218, Billed-Magazin, 1870). We shall meet Trovat- 



82 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ten again below as a pioneer in the Town of Cottage 
Grove in the same connty. The editor of Billed- 
Magazin writes of Trovatten elsewhere, page 283, 
after giving a brief sketch of his life: "he settled on 
Koshkonong and wrote therefrom many letters to 
his nmnerous friends in his native country in which 
he, with much eloquence, made his countrymen ac- 
quainted with the glories of America, and there is 
no doubt that Trovatten in a large measure gave 
the impulse to the rapid development of emigration 
in the region of Telemarken." 

Of Trovatten 's influence as a promoter of immi- 
gration Gunder T. Mandt, himself an immigrant of 
1843 (died 1907, Stoughton, Wisconsin), gives sim- 
ilar testimony. He speaks of the opposition to emi- 
gration in Upper Telemarken, which found expres- 
sion in all sorts of adverse accounts of America, 
especially among the clergy, and that much uncer- 
tainty prevailed among the masses as to the advisa- 
bility of going to America. During all this, Trovat- 
ten, he says, "came to be looked upon as an angel 
of peace, who had gone beforehand to the New 
World, whence he sent back home to his countrymen, 
so burdened by economic sorrows, the olive-branch 
of promise, with assurances of a happier life in 
America. . . . 'Ole Trovatten has said so,' became 
the refrain in all accounts of the land of wonder, and 
in a few years he was the most talked of man in 
Upper Telemarken. His letters from America gave 
a powerful impulse to emigration, and it is probable 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 83 

that hundreds of those who now are plowing the 
soil of AVisconsin and Minnesota would still be living 
in their ancestors' domains in the land of Harald 
Fairhair, if they had not been induced to bid old 
Norway farewell through Trovatten's glittering ac- 
counts of conditions on this side of the ocean." 
{B illed-M agazin, 1870, p. 38.) Similar evidence of 
the influence of ^'America-letters" is also given by 
Knud Aslakson Juve, a pioneer of 1844, in the Town 
of Pleasant Spring, in Dane County. 

At the close of the preceding chapter I spoke of 
Gjert Hovland's letters in 1835 as a chief factor in 
bringing about the emigration of 1836. From set- 
tlers in other portions of the country comes testi- 
mony of similar nature, and I have spoken with 
many pioneers from a later period of immigration, 
whose coming was, in the last instance, determined 
by favorite accounts of America received from 
friends and relatives already resident there. 

In letters from immigrants to their relatives at 
home prepaid tickets, or the price of the ticket, were 
often enclosed. This custom was so common as to 
become a special factor in emigration. According 
to Norsk Folkeblad (cited in Billed-Magazin, p. 134), 
4,000 Norwegian emigrants, via Christiana in 1868, 
took with them $40,335 (Speciedaler) in cash money 
of which $21,768 (Spd.) had been sent by relatives 
in America to cover the expense of the journey. It 
has been estimated that about fifty per cent of Scan- 



84 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

dinavian emigrants, arrive by prepaid passage tick- 
ets secured by relatives in this country.^* 

The visits of successful Scandinavians back 
home was in the early days an important factor; 
and as a rule only those who had been prosperous 
would return. In 1835 Knud Anderson Slogvig, 
who had emigrated in the sloop as we know, return- 
ed to Norway and became the chief promoter of 
the exodus from the Province of Stavanger in 1836, 
which resulted in the settlement at Fox River, La 
Salle County, Illinois. 

We have already above, page 63, recited this 
fact and its significance toward promoting fur- 
ther emigration from Stavanger Province and of in- 
augurating the first exodus from Hardanger also. 
Thus, while Jacob Slogvig, the brother, was one of a 
few to secure land in La Salle County and make the 
beginnings of settlement, Knud became the means of 
bringing hosts of immigrants from Norway to re- 
cruit the colony and start it upon its course of 
growth. In precisely a similar way did two other 
brothers become even more significant factors in 
the foundation and development of the earliest Nor- 
wegian settlement in Wisconsin, namely, that of 
Jefferson Prairie in Rock County. They were Ole 
and Ansten Nattestad, who had emigrated in 1837. 
Returning to Norway in 1839 Ansten Nattestad be- 
came the father of emigration from Numedal, Nor- 
way, bringing with him a large party of immigrants, 



58 Nelson 's History of Scandinavians, page 56. 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 85 

who located for the most part in southern Rock 
County, Wisconsin, and adjacent parts of the state 
of Illinois. But of this movement I shall have occa- 
sion to speak more fully below. 

An equally interesting instance we have from 
a somewhat later period. We have above referred 
to Ole Dyrland's testimony of the effect of Ole Tro- 
vatten's letters. After remarking that many still 
were doubtful of the advisabiUty of emigrating he 
goes on to say: 

"But then Knud Svalestuen of Vinje, who had lived 
for a time in the Muskego Settlement, came home on a 
trip back to Norway, and by his accounts even the most 
hesitating were made firm in their faith. Knud came in 
the fall of 1843, and during the winter he received visits 
of men sent out from various districts in Telemarken, who 
came to secure reliable information about the new coun- 
try. The next spring hosts of intending emigrants left 
the upper mountain districts of the country. . . , Three 
emigrant ships left that year from Porsgrund. On board 
the ship I left in there were two hundred and eleven 
emigrants. ' ' 

The editor of Billed-Magazin gives other inter- 
views with pioneers showing the effect of Svale- 
stuen 's return (page 293). 

Some of the Norwegian pioneers wrote books 
regarding the settlements and American conditions, 
and these, laudatory as they were, exerted not a little 
influence. Special mention should be made of Ole 
Rynning, whose pamphlet, Sandfaerdig Beretning 
om Amerika til Veiledning og Hjaelp for Bonde og, 



86 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Menigmand, skrevet af en Norsk som horn der i Juni 
Maaned, 1837.59 This little book of thirty-nine 
pages had not a little to do with the emigration that 
followed to La Salle County, Illinois, and elsewhere. 
In it the author gives an intelligent discussion of 
thirteen questions regarding America which he set 
himself to answer. Among them were; What is 
the nature of the country? What is the reason that 
so many people go there? Is it not to be feared 
that the land will soon be overpopulated? In what 
parts are the Norwegian settlements? Which is the 
most convenient and the cheapest route to them? 
What is the price of land? Wliat provision is there 
for the education of children? What language is 
spoken and is it dif35cult to learn? Is there danger 
of disease in America ? What kind of people should 
emigrate ? 

Another writer of immigration literature whose 
writings were widely distributed and had consid- 
erable influence was Johan Eeinert Reierson. He 
came to America in 1843, but returned to Norway 
soon after. In America he had written a book, Veivi- 
seren, ^^ which he published in Norway and was read 
far and wide. This book contains a fund of infor- 
mation regarding the different settlements, as Ra- 
cine County, Wisconsin, La Salle County, Illinois, 
and Lee County, Iowa, and others, all of which Reier- 



59 True Account of America for the Information and Help of 
Peasant and Commoner, written by a Norwegian who came there in 
the month of June, 1837. 

60 The Pathfinder, a book of one hundred and sixty-six pages. 



CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 87 

son had himself visited. Reierson became the 
founder of the first Norwegian settlement in Texas 
in 1847-48. 

Of the events leading up to this, Billed-Mag- 
azin for 1870 gives a circumstantial account, 
pages 58-60, 66-67, and 75-76. Reierson 's book 
seems to have been a leading factor in promoting 
emigration from Valders. Among the earliest to 
leave this region were Nils Hanson Fjeld and fam- 
ily of South Aurdal, Valders, who emigrated in 
1847. He says, page 236 of Billed-Magazin for 1870, 
that before him only two or three single men had 
gone to America from that region. The "America- 
fever" had not yet taken hold of the people, "many 
would not give credence to mere hearsay, but after a 
while a couple copies of Reierson 's book about Texas 
came to the district. 'Now we have the printed 
word to go by,' it was said, and many of the 
doubters soon were converted to the orthodox 
faith in the land of promise beyond the great 
ocean." And as a result, many began to emigrate. 
As early as 1848, emigration from Valders on a 
considerable scale was already in progress. 

I shall here also mention Ansten Nattestad, 
who wrote a similar book, which he took with him 
on his return to Norway in 1838, and had printed 
there; this became a factor operating toward 
emigration, especially in Numedal. Reverend J. W. 
C. Dietrichson's Reise hlandt de norske Emigranter 
i de forenede nordamerikanske Fristater, Stavanger, 



88 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

1846 (124 pages), gave much valuable information 
about the settlements, but was not calculated to exert 
much influence toward emigration. The first three 
that I have mentioned, however, had an influence 
which we today can hardly fully appreciate. 

Finally, curiosity and the spirit of adventure 
have doubtless prompted some to cross the ocean. 

To sum up, the chief influences that have pro- 
moted Scandinavian emigration to the United States 
in the nineteenth century have been in the order of 
their importance : first, the prospect of material bet- 
terment and the love of a freer and more independ- 
ent life ; second, letters of relatives and friends who 
had emigrated to the United States and visits of 
these again to their native country; third, the ad- 
vertising of agents of emigration; fourth, religious 
persecution at home; fifth, church proselytism; 
sixth, political oppression; seventh, military ser- 
vice; and eighth, the desire for adventure. Fugi- 
tives from justice have been few, and paupers and 
criminals in the Scandinavian countries are not sent 
out of the country; they are taken care of by the 
government. 



CHAPTER IX 

Growth of the Fox River Settlement. The Immi- 
gration of 1836. Further Personal Sketches. 

On page fifty-five above I spoke of the advance 
troop of six men who established the Fox River Set- 
tlement in 1834. A list of those who followed from 
New York in 1835 was also given. Other settlers 
came in subsequent years, more and more now com- 
ing directly from Norway to La Salle County. The 
vicinity of the present towns of Norway and Leland, 
in eastern and northern La Salle County, became 
centers of a settlement, which later extended east 
into Kendall County (Newark and Lisbon) and into 
Grundy County toward Morris, as also north into 
DeKalb County (Rollo, Sandwich), and northwest 
clear into southwestern Lee County (Paw Paw, Sub- 
lette, and surrounding region). The slooper, Ole 
Olson Hetletvedt, had not come west with the first 
party. He lived first in Kendall and then went to 
Niagara Falls, being there employed in a paper mill. 
Here he married a Miss Chamberlain, then moved 
back to Orleans County. In 1839 he and his wife 
went west, settling in Kendall County. He bought 
land on the spot where the town of Newark now 
stands. He became well known as a lay preacher 
of the Haugian faith in the Fox River Settlement, 
also visiting the settlements founded soon after in 



90 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Wisconsin and in Lee County, Iowa. He died in 
Kendall County in 1849 or 1850. ^i 

Iver Waller, who bought a claim of Miss Pear- 
son in 1835, came directly from Norway to La Salle 
County that year. Baldwin's History oj La Salle 
County lists Ove Stenson Eossadal and wife, and 
John Stenson Eossadal among the arrivals of 
1835, and as being brothers of Daniel Eossadal, of 
whom we have spoken above. Strand's History of 
the Norwegians in Ulinois correctly names them as 
sons of Daniel Eossadal. Nils Bilden, who also 
came during this period (year uncertain), was there- 
fore one of the very first emigrants from Hardanger 
to the United States. He settled at Eochester, San- 
gamon County, Illinois. 

As to the extent of Norwegian immigration dur- 
ing the years immediately preceding the year, 1836, 
which inaugurates a new period in the movement, 
our information is very fragmentary. American 
statistics give forty-two and thirty-one, respective- 
ly, for 1834 and 1835, as the total immigration from 
Norway and Sweden. In 1833 there were sixteen, 
while the number for 1832 is three hundred and 
thirteen.^^ The total number between 1826 and 1831 
is given as sixty-eight. It is probable, however, 
that these figures do not represent the full number 
of immigrants during these years. Norwegian gov- 



61 One of hia sons was Colonel Porter C. Olson of Civil War fame, 
member of the Thirty-sixth Illinois Infantry. 

62 Among those who came in 1832 was John Nordboe from Gud- 
brandsdalen, Norway. 



FOX RIVER SETTLEMENT 91 

ernment statistics on immigration which are avail- 
able since 1836, give the number of immigrants for 
that year as two hundred, which is also the fig- 
ure for the following year. It is to this exodus that 
we shall now turn. 

We have above, under Causes of Emigration, had 
occasion to speak of Knud Slogvig's return to Nor- 
way in 1835, after a ten years' residence in Amer- 
ica; " the results of his return were also there brief- 
ly noted. In the two ships, Norden and Den Norske 
Klippe,^'^ w'hich sailed from Stavanger in July of 
1836, came two hundred immigrants, ^^ who located 
for the most part in the Fox River Settlement. 
These stopped en route for a short time in Roches- 
ter, no doubt gathering advice and information from 
Lars Larson, the captain of the sloopers, resident 
there as we know; thence they continued their jour- 
ney west to Chicago and to La Salle County. Thus 
the nucleus which had been formed in 1834-35 in a 
very short time developed into a considerable set- 
tlement at a time when the surrounding country 
was practically a wilderness. The immigrants of 
1836 were, in part, from Stavanger, some, however, 
were from other districts, east and north, as es- 
pecially Hardanger and Voss. 

Not all who came settled in Mission and the 



63 While in Norway he married a sister of Ole Olson Hetletvedt, 
which may have been in part the purpose of his return. 

64 The North and The Norwegian RocJc. 

65 Langeland says a hundred and sixty on page eighteen of his 
work, elsewhere a hundred and fifty. Two hundred seems, however, to 
have been approximately the number. 



92 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

later Miller townships, however. Some went con- 
siderably farther north and established, in Adams 
Township, a northern extension of the original settle- 
ment at and around the present village of Leland. 
The two, however, later grew together Into one large 
settlement, extending also, east into Kendall County. 
The first white settler in Adams Township was Mor- 
dicai Disney, who located there in 1836, slightly 
prior to the coming of the immigrants from Stavan- 
ger. ^^ 

The first of our immigrants to locate in Adams 
Township where Halvor Nelson and Ole T. Olson, 
who in the spring of 1837, settled on sections 
twenty-one and twenty- two ; ^"^ they had lived in Mis- 
sion Township since their coming in 1836. Among 
those who came in 1836 and located in Mission Town- 
ship were: Amund Anderson Hornefjeld, who in 
1840 went to Wisconsin (see below), Erick Johnson 
Savig^^ and wife, Ingeborg, from Kvinherred Par- 
ish, Knud Olson Hetletvedt and wife, Serena (both 
of whom died of cholera in 1849), Osmund Thom- 
ason, ^' wife and daughter, Anne, Henrik Erick- 
son Sebbe and two sons, who went to Salt Lake 
City in 1848 (see above, p. 78) . Samuel Peerson and 
Helge Vatname also seem to have come in 1836 ; they 

66 Disney left again in 1837. 

67 The Olson homestead is still owned by the son, Nels Olson. 

68 Died in 1840, leaving wife and two children, John and Anna 
Bertha ; the latter later became the wife of John J. Najset in the town 
of Christiana, Dane County, Wisconsin. Saevig was bom in 1803, his 
wife in 1809. 

69 Died in 1876, ninety-two years old. 



FOX RIVER SETTLEMENT 93 

are recorded as living at Norway, Illinois, in 1837, 
and as aiding in bringing some of the immigrants 
of 1837 from Chicago to La Salle County. 

Some of those who came in 1836 did not go 
directly to La Salle County. Andrew Anderson 
(Aasen), wife, Olena, three sons and two daughters, 
from Tysvasr Parish, Skjold, remained two years in 
Orleans County, New York, coming to La Salle 
County in 1838 ; he died of the cholera in 1849. John 
Hidle from Stavanger County, Norway, also emi- 
grated in 1836, coming direct to La Salle County. 
In 1838 he settled at Lisbon, Kendall County, being 
thus the first Norwegian to locate there and as far 
as I have been able to find out, the first Norwegian 
to settle in that county (for Ole 0. Hetletvedt did not 
come till 1839). Hidle, who wrote his name Hill in 
this country, married Susanna Anderson, daughter of 
Andrew Anderson ; she was fourteen years old when 
her parents came to America, and is still living, at 
Morris, Illinois, with her daughter Mrs. Austin Os- 
mond. Lars Bo and Michael Bo, who lived and 
died in La Salle County, came when John Hill did. 
Lars Larson Brimsoe, born in Stavanger, 1812, 
worked for some time as a carpenter in New 
York and Chicago before settling in La Salle 
County. In 1858 he located in Benton County, 
Iowa, and in 1872 went to Adams County 
(died 1873). Bjom Anderson Kvelve and wife, 
Catherine, ^^ and two sons, Arnold Andrew and 

70 Abel Catherine von Krogh was born in 1809. Her father was 
Arnold von Krogh. Bjorne Anderson Kvelve was born in 1801. For 



94 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Brunn, from Vikedal, Ryfylke, lived for a year 
in Eocliester, New York, came in 1837 to Mission 
Township, La Salle County. He removed to Dane 
County, Wisconsin, in 1839. Of Lars Tallakson, who 
came to America in 1836 (by way of Gothenburg), 
we shall speak below. Herman Aarag Osmond, 
born near Stavanger, 1818, also came to America in 
1836. He first lived in Ohio, came in 1837 to Chi- 
cago, then to Norway, La Salle County. He settled 
on a faiTQ near Norway in 1848, but bought in 1869 
a farm near Newark, Kendall County; Herman 
Osmond died in Newark in 1888. 

Some of the immigrants of 1836 located in Chi- 
cago, which then consisted of only a few houses. 
Among these was first, Halstein Torison (or Tor- 
ison), to whom Knud Langeland accords the dis- 
tinction of being the first Norwegian resident of 
Chicago. He was from Fjeldberg in Sondhord- 
land, and he came to Chicago with wife and chil- 
dren in October, 1836. The site of his home was 
that now occupied by the Chicago and Northwestern 
Depot on Wells Street. He worked first as a gar- 
dener for a Mr. Newberry. Reverend Dietrichson 
speaks of him, in 1844, as prosperous and as occupy- 
ing a leading position among Cliicago Norwegians 
at that time. In 1848 he moved to Calumet, twenty 



a sketch of Bjorn Anderson and his wife see pages 155-170 of First 
Chapter of Norwegian Immigration by E. B. Anderson, who is their 
third son (b. 1846 in Albion, Wisconsin) ; I am indebted to this work 
for many facts relative to the Illinois pioneers of 1836-1837. 



FOX RIVER SETTLEMENT 95 

miles south of Chicago, where he lived until his 
death in 1882. 

Svein Lothe, from Hardanger, also came in 1836, 
as did Nils Rothe and wife, Torbjor, who were from 
Voss. The latter remained, however, in Rochester, 
New York, one year before coming to Chicago. 
Nils Rothe and wife were the first to emi- 
grate from Voss, Norway. Johan Larson, from 
Kopervik, an island not far north of Stav- 
anger city, also located in Chicago in 1836. 
He was a sailor and had, it seems, visited Chicago 
before; what year he came to America, I do not 
know. I may also mention Baard Johnson, who, 
with his wife and five children, settled in Chicago 
in 1837. Those we have mentioned form the nucleus 
out of which has grown today the largest Norwegian 
city colony in this country. 

Svein Knutson Lothe, who emigrated with wife 
and two children from Hardanger in 1836, was from 
the Parish of Ullensvang. There were eleven per- 
sons in all who came from Ullensvang that year, the 
other seven being: Jon Jonson Aga, wife and two 
children, Torbjorn Djonne, Olav Oystenson Lofthus 
and Omund Helgeson Maakestad. Maakestad be- 
came the founder of the Hardanger settlement in 
Lee County, Illinois (see below). I am not able to 
say where Aga, Djonne or Lofthus located. There 
were also seven immigrants from Ulvik Parish, Har- 
danger, that year; they were: Sjur Haaheim and 
wife, Paul Dale and wife, Sjur Dale and wife and 



96 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Aslak Holven. These eighteen persons form the 
advance guard of the immigration from Hardanger. 
We have spoken of the two ships that came from 
Stavanger in 1836. These were followed in the next 
year by Enigheden (Harmony), Captain Jensen, 
carrying ninety-three passengers. These were for 
the most part from Tysvaer and from Hjelmeland, 
and Aardal in Ryfylke, from the city of Stav- 
anger, and from Egersund. They came to New 
York, thence went to Albany and Rochester, and by 
way of the lakes to Chicago. Most of them went to 
La Salle County, although not all settled there per- 
manently. Among the passengers were Hans Val- 
der and wife from Ryfylke, Knud Olson Eide, Ole 
Thompson Eide, from Fogn, near Stavanger, 
Thomas A. Thompson, Christopher Danielson and 
family, Osten Espeland and family, and Knud Dan- 
ielson and family. 

The sailing of Enigheden may be regarded as 
a continuation of the movement in Stavanger county, 
which was given such an impetus by Klnud Slog- 
vig's return in 1835. Other immigrants continued 
to come from this region in subsequent years, but 
the autumn of 1837 inaugurates a change in the 
course of the movement to a more northerly region, 
Hardanger, Voss, and Bergen, for a period, con- 
tributing a large share to the now rapidly increasing 
numbers of emigrants. 



CHAPTER X 

The Tear 1837. The Sailing of Aegir. 

The influence of Gjert Hovland in this new trend 
in the immigration should be noted. South Bergen- 
hus now became the scene of immigration activity. 
At the same time it is to be observed that Hardan- 
ger had contributed its quota of immigrants in the 
exodus of 1836. The return of Knud Slogvig was 
noised far beyond the County of Stavanger. Among 
those who travelled long distances to see and talk 
with Slogvig and get personal affirmation of what 
reports had told of America, was Nils P. Lange- 
land, a school teacher from Samnanger, one of the 
emigrants of 1837. Similarly Knud Langeland re- 
lates in Nordmaendene i Amerika, page twenty-three, 
how he paid a visit to Slogvig in the winter of 1836, 
and received from him assurance of what he had 
read ^^ about the New World. Knud Langeland gives 
a most interesting account of how his interest in 
America became aroused ; though a personal experi- 
ence, it is undoubtedly typical of that of many a 
young man in Bergen and surrounding region at this 
time. As a document in immigration history, it is 
sufficiently significant to warrant quoting in con- 
siderable part. He says: 

71 Especially in a German book on travels in America, see his 
account, p. 21. Knud Langeland did not emigrate, however, before 
1843. 



98 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

"Purely by accident I found in a friend's library in 
Bergen a book by a German entitled Reisen in Amerika. 
. . . . As this book contained some vivid pictures of 
the distant regions the traveller had visited, as well as of 
the impressions he had received of land and people in the 
new world, it was read with all the allurements of a novel. 
Here was given full information about the German emigra- 
tion. With this description of travels in my pocket I went 
early one summer morning along the bay of Solem and up 
the steep ascent of Lyderhom. Up there I read and 
dreamed of the new wonderful world far away to the west. 
The mist had sunk low over the fjords between the isles 
about Bergen, but up there around the tree-tops it was 
bright sunshine. It was the first time I had seen this glo- 
rious sight peculiar to mountain regions. If any prosaic 
nature ever received poetic inspiration and exaltation it 
was during this time, while my eyes beheld the sunlit sur- 
face of the fog and in the distance caught a glimpse of the 
sparkling shield of the North Sea, which seemed to rise to 
the height of the mountain And far out to- 
ward the west, thousands of miles out there, lies the land 
about which I am reading, lies the big, still so little known 
part of the world, with its secrets and its wonders. From 
that time I sought all books and descriptions of travel con- 
cerning America which I could get, and, together with an 
uncle of mine, I began to collect as much information about 
the new world, as well through books as through the verbal 
accounts from Stavanger people, which now began to be 
current in the district concerning Kleng Peerson's emigra- 
tion and return, without our yet actually thinking of emi- 
grating. Through a kind friend's help I was enabled in 
1834 to spend six months in England, on which occasion 
I gathered a number of pamphlets and books about America 



SAILING OF AEGIR 99 

and emigration from England. In this way more definite 
and more reliable information as to conditions in America 
and the journey thither gradually spread in the vicinity. 
This seemed to discredit the many ridiculous and impossible 
stories now constantly set in circulation. Slowly but stead- 
ily the thought of emigrating to America took root; more 
and more joined the little group which now in earnest be- 
gan talking of selling their homes and going to America. 
Then it was that the bishop of Bergen wrote a letter to the 
farmers of Bergen on the text, "Remain in the country; 
make your living honorably," whether he forgot it or did 
not regard it suitable to the occasion, he failed to quote the 
second commandment of the passage: "Multiply and fill 
the world." The latter the farmers had adhered to; most 
of them had large families, and since the land at home was 
filled, while they now heard that a large part of the new 
world was unsettled, they decided to disobey the bishop's 
advice and go to the new Canaan, where flowed milk and 
honey. ' ' 

So far Langeland's account. While the evi- 
dence points to many causes as operating conjointly 
toward bringing about the departure, in the spring 
of 1837, of so many from Samnanger and from Voss, 
the influence of Nils P. Langeland, already men- 
tioned above, seems to have been a special factor 
at this particular time. Nils Langeland was al- 
ready then an elderly man. He had devoted his 
life to the cause of popular education, but the in- 
tolerant clergy of the time found him too liberal 
minded and continually put obstacles in his way. 
Although he was supported by a group of faithful 
friends, his usefulness was hampered; discouraged 



100 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

at last, he decided to leave his native country and 
go to America. 

This was in the summer of 1836. In the fall 
of that year, Captain Behrens returned with the 
bark, Aegir, from America, whither he had car- 
ried a cargo of freight in the summer. Lfenge-, 
land's friends had already sold their homes and were 
preparing to emigrate. Hearing of this, Behrens 
decided to convert his bark into a passenger boat, 
and he offered to take them to America the next 
spring ; the offer was accepted. While preparations 
were going on, the announcements of the projected 
sailing, which had been printed in the newspapers, 
led intending immigrants from other sections, also, 
to join the party. Among these was Ole Kynning, 
from Snaasen, in Trondhjem Province, of whom we 
shall speak more at length below. 

On the 4th of July, 1837, Aegir sailed from Ber- 
gen with eighty-two passengers. Among these were 
Mons Aadland, Nils Froland, Anders Nordvig, Inge- 
brigt Brudvig, Thomas Bauge and Thorbjom Veste, 
all of whom had large families, and the following 
from Hardanger: Nils L. Jordre, wife and six chil- 
dren, and Peder J. Maurset, wife and child, from 
Ulvik Parish, and Amund Rosseland, wife and three 
children, Lars G. Skeie, wife and two children, Sjur 
E. Rosseland and Svein L. Midthus from Vikor. The 
last-named were the first to emigrate from Vikor. 
The party further included Halle Vaete, wife and 
grown daughter, and the following persons : Odd J. 



SAILING OF AEGIR 101 

Himle, Kolbein 0. Sane, Styrk 0. Sane, Nils L. Bol- 
stad, Baard Haugen, John H. Bjorgo, Ole Dyvik, all 
of whom were married, besides several single men, 
mostly relatives of the above, namely : Dovig, Bauge, 
Froland, Nordvig, Hisdal, Tosseland, et al. Each 
adult paid sixty dollars (Norwegian specie) for 
passage, children nnder twelve paying half price. 
They arrived in New York eight weeks later. 
The journey inland was attended by numerous ex- 
penses for which the immigrants were not prepared. 
Wlien they had gotten as far as Detroit, the above- 
mentioned Nils P. Langeland found himself without 
the necessary means to continue the journey. His 
friends who had offered to pay his expenses as far 
as Chicago, at last became discouraged over the 
constant demands upon their funds and Langeland 
was obliged to remain in Detroit. Here, being a 
capable carpenter, he soon found work; later he 
removed to Lapeer County, Michigan, bought there 
120 acres of land, plying at the same time the trade of 
a carpenter. Thus it came about that Nils Lange- 
land became the first Norwegian to settle in the State 
of Michigan, though we have seen that Kleng Peer- 
son had visited the state four years earlier. At least 
three others of the immigrants of 1837 located tem- 
porarily in the State of Michigan that year, namely, 
Ingebright Nordvig, Osten Espeland, who had come 
in Enigheden, and Thorsten Bjaaland. These went to 
Adrian, Lenawee County, but left again soon 
after. We shall meet Bjaaland again in La Salle 
County, Illinois, and on Koshkonong Prairie. 



CHAPTER XI 
Beaver Creek. Ole Rynning, 

The immigrants who came in the Aegir seem to 
have intended to settle in La Salle County, but in 
Chicago were advised by two Americans not to go 
there. They were also partly influenced by Nor- 
wegian immigrants '^^ who were dissatisfied with that 
locality, and who recommended Iroquois County as 
a more desirable location to settle. They were told 
that the Fox River Valley was a very unhealthy 
place, the settlers were dying of ague and fever, 
and it was a misfortune that they had ever been in- 
duced to locate there. (Knut Langeland also re- 
cords the fact that the fever raged in the whole 
of the Fox River Valley from Muskego, in Wisconsin, 
to the Mississippi River in Illinois, that summer, 
but that the condition in La Salle was no worse than 
elsewhere). So the intending settlers deputed three 
men to explore the country for a site for a new col- 
ony. 

These, Ole Rynning, Ingebrigt Bnidvig and 
Ole Nattestad,''^ walked south along the line of the 
present Illinois Central Railroad, selecting the loca- 

72 Bjorn Anderson seems to have in part been instrumental in 
their not going to La Salle County, but there is no evidence that he 
recommended Iroquois County as far as I am aware. 

73 Niels Veste may also have been of the party. 



BEAVER CREEK 103 

tion at Beaver Creek in Iroquois County. Of the 
further history of this unfortunate and short lived 
colony, the reader may find an account in Dietrich- 
son's brief discussion of the settlement, or in Lange- 
land's or E. B. Anderson's book. The majority of 
the settlers died during the spring in the low and 
unhealthy climate. Ole Rynning himself died and 
lies buried there. The few survivors left for La 
Salle County the following spring. Mons Aadland 
refused, however, to go. He remained in Beaver 
Creek three years longer ; selling his land in 1840 for 
a herd of cattle and, moving north, he located in 
Racine County, being therefore one of the earliest 
pioneers in this part of Wisconsin. 

Ole Rynning 's name is most closely associated 
with the brief history of the Beaver Creek Settle- 
ment. We have already seen above how his book, 
Sandfaerdig Beretning om Amerika, came to have 
a very far-reaching influence upon Norwegian emi- 
gration. This book Rynning wrote that winter in 
the Beaver Creek Settlement. It was printed in 
Norway the next year. It soon became widely dis- 
tributed and continued for over a decade to exert 
a powerful influence upon Norwegian emigration 
from Voss, east to Hedemarken, and north to Gud- 
brandsdalen, in these latter provinces, at the close 
of the decade, especially. 

We have, on page 86 above, observed that Ryn- 
ning formulated certain questions which he set about 
answering for the information of intending immi- 



104 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

grants. It will be of interest to note here the na- 
ture of some of his answers. The first question as 
to the nature of the country, he answers by giving 
a very intelligent account of the topography and 
climate of the country, the soil in the different parts, 
and of what the produce of the different sections 
consists. In answer to the third question, he says 
that the United States is more than twenty times 
as large as Norway, that the greater part of the 
country is not yet even under cultivation, and that 
there is room for a population more than a hundred 
times as great as that of Norway. There need be 
no fear, he says, that the country will be full in fifty 
years. 

The fourth question as to where the Norwe- 
gian immigrants have located especially, he an- 
swers by saying, that in New York, Rochester, De- 
troit, Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans, there 
are said to be individual settlers; but he mentions 
four places where several have settled, namely: (1) 
Orleans County, New York, but where, he says, there 
are now only two or three families left; (2) La Salle 
County, Illinois, where, he says, there are about 
twenty families; (3) White County, Indiana, on the 
Tippecanoe Eiver. '^Here," he says, live "only two 
Norwegians from Drammen, who, together, own 
about eleven hundred acres of land"; (4) Shelby 
County, Missouri, where a few Norwegians from 
Stavanger settled in the spring of 1837; (5) Iro- 
quois County, Illinois. "Here," he says, "there are 



BEAVER CREEK 105 

eleven or twelve families of those who came last 
summer. ' ' 

The sixth question as to the land in these 
localities, he answers by praising the beauty and 
the fertility of the prairie. And as to the price 
of land, he says, that it has hitherto been $1.25 per 
acre, but that he has heard that hereafter land is 
to be di\^ded into three classes and the price of land 
of the third class is to be half a dollar an acre. He 
then offers explicit directions as to how to go about 
securing land. He thereupon gives the prices of live- 
stock at the time, and of produce, etc. A horse, we 
learn, costs from fifty to a hundred dollars, a yoke 
of oxen, sixty to eighty. A milk cow with calf, 
sixteen to twenty, a sheep, two to three, hogs are 
six to ten dollars a head, pork costs three to five 
shillings a ^'mark," butter six to twelve, a barrel of 
(wheat) flour, eight to ten dollars ; a barrel of corn- 
meal, two and a half to three dollars; a barrel of 
potatoes, one dollar; a pound of coffee, twenty shil- 
lings; a barrel of salt is five dollars (Norwegian). 
But in Wisconsin Territory, the prices are two to 
three times higher, while farther south, everything 
is cheaper. 

Then he speaks of wages, of religious con- 
ditions, law and order, how instruction for the 
young is provided, linguistic conditions, health con- 
ditions. He discusses life in the new settlements, 
its trials and attendant evils. As to the Indians, 
he says : ' ' They have gone farther west ; one need 



106 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

never fear attack by Indians in Illinois." In an- 
swer to the question as to who should emigrate, he 
warns against unreasonable expectations; advises 
farmers, mechanics and tradesmen to come, he who 
neither can nor will work must never expect, he says, 
that wealth or luxury will stand ready to receive 
him. No, in America one gets nothing without 
work, but by work, one can expect to attain to com- 
fortable circumstances. He thereupon discusses the 
question of the dangers in crossing the oceans, 
which, he says, are less than usually imagined, and 
the rumor of enslavement of the imm^grant. The 
latter he brands as false, adding, ''yet it is true that 
many who have not been able to pay their passage, 
have come upon such terms that they have sold 
themselves, or their service, for a certain number 
of years to some man here in the country. Many 
are thereby said to have come into bad hands, and 
have not had it better than slaves. No Norwegian, 
as far as I know, has fared in this way, nor is it to 
be feared, if one crosses by a Norwegian ship, and 
with one's own countrymen." In conclusion, I shall 
cite his opinion on the slave trade which is inter- 
esting in the insight and judgment it gives evidence 
of, on the part of an immigrant over twenty years 
before the war: 

The northern states are trying in every congress to 
abolish slavery in the southern states; but as these always 
oppose it and appeal to their right to govern their own 
internal affairs, there will probably soon take place a sep- 



BEAVER CREEK 107 

aration between the northern and the southern states, or 
else there will be internal conflict. 

Ole Rynning was born in Ringsaker, as the son 
of Reverend Jens Rynning and wife, Severine 
Catherine Steen, in 1809. In 1825, the father moved 
to Snaasen. Having finished his education in 1829, 
he taught school for a time. Then he bought a small 
farm ^'^ which he had to give up again, not being 
able to pay for it. His ultra democratic sympathies 
were displeasing to his conservative father, and an 
unhappy love affair, which his father disapproved 
of as being a mesalliance, seems, at least, to have 
been, in part the cause of his leaving Norway. 
We have recited, briefly, his short career in 
America.^^ Of his nobility of character and the self- 
sacrificing spirit he showed in helping the grief - 
stricken and suffering colonists in the unfortunate 
Beaver Creek Settlement, in the spring and summer 
of 1838, his surviving associates give ample testi- 
mony. His book, Sandfaerdig Beretning, was writ- 
ten on the sick-bed. ^^ When he died, there was only 
one man in the settlement who was well enough to 
make a casket for him from an old oak which he 
hewed down. Rynning was buried out on the 
prairie, but no one knows now where the spot is. 

74 This he bought of the father of Eev. B. G. Muus, well-known 
in Norwegian-American church history, and a long time pastor at 
Norway, Goodhue County, Minnesota. 

75 See above p. 103. 

76 Ansten Nattestad, of whom below, took it with him to Norway 
that year and got it printed in Christiania. 



CHAPTER XII 

Some of the Immigrants of 1837. The First Path- 
finders from Numedal and Telemarhen. 

Besides the 177 immigrants, who came to Amer- 
ica from Stavanger and Bergen in 1837, there was a 
considerable number who embarked from Gothen- 
burg, Sweden. These came mostly from Numedal 
and Telemarken in the south central part of Norway. 

Among the immigrants of 1837 were, also, the 
brothers, Ole and Ansten Nattestad, from Vsegli, 
Numedal, both of whom came via Gothenburg, and 
Hans Barlien, who emigrated with Enigheden. 
These men played such a part in the immigration 
history of the period as to deserve something more 
than a mere mention. 

Ansten Nattestad may be regarded as the father 
of the emigration movement from Numedal, Norway, 
from which some of the most successful Norwegian 
settlements in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, were 
later recruited. His brother, Ole Nattestad, became 
the founder of one of these settlements, that of 
Jefferson Prairie, in Rock County, Wisconsin (also 
extending into Illinois) ; while Hans Barlien found- 
ed the first Norwegian settlement in Iowa, at Sugar 
Creek, Lee County. Of the circumstances which led 
to the emigration of the Nattestad brothers, an in- 
teresting account appears in Billed-Magazin, 1869, 



THE FIRST PATHFINDERS 109 

pag€S 82-83. This, which is an interview with Ole 
Nattestad, has been reprinted in other works and I 
shall not take the space for it here. We may note, 
however, that they had received their first news of 
America upon a journey to the neighborhood of 
Stavanger in the close of 1836. During Christmas of 
that year, they were the guests of Even Nubbru in 
Sigdal, a member of the Storthing, and it was his 
praise of American laws which first aroused Ole 
Nattestad 's desire to emigrate, as he had already 
had some unpleasant experiences in that respect. 
In April, 1837, they stood ready to leave for 
America, having converted their possessions into 
cash, a sum of eight hundred dollars. They went 
on skis from Rollaug to Tin, over the mountains 
and through the forests to Stavanger. Halsten 
Halvorson Brrekke-Eiet, also from Rollaug, be- 
came a third member of the party. In Stavanger, 
local official hostility to emigration led them into 
difficulties, and they were forced to seek safety in 
flight by night. They went to Tananger, where they 
were more successful, a skipper contracting to take 
them in his yacht to Gothenburg. In Gothenburg, 
they secured passage with a ship which carried iron 
from Sweden to Fall River, Massachusetts. The 
journey lasted thirty-two days. Thence, they went 
to New York, where they met a few Norwegians, and 
thence again to Rochester. Here they spoke with 
several members of the sloop party of 1825, now liv- 
ing in Rochester, and they were, for a short time, the 
guests of Lars Olson, as so many others of the immi- 



no NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

grants of those years. Hearing that those who had 
come to America in 1836 had gone west to La Salle 
County, they decided to go there. In Detroit, Ole 
Nattestad was one day walking about to view the 
city, and he says: 

Here I accidentally came upon a man, whom I imme- 
diately recognized by his clothes as a countryman from the 
western coast of Norway. I greeted the man, and the meet- 
ing was for us both as if two brothers had met after a long 
separation. 

This man was one of the passengers on the 
Aegir, who had just then arrived in Detroit. The 
Nattestad party now joined these, all (except N. P. 
Langeland and family, as we have seen, page 102 
above), going west to Chicago. Here they met 
Bjorn Anderson Kvelve, whose unfavorable account 
of the Fox River locality first gave them some doubt 
as to the wisdom of going there. Of the subse- 
quent events, the reader has already been told. We 
shall meet again with both Ole and Ansten Natte- 
stad below. Halsten Brsekke-Eiet later settled in 
Dodgeville, Wisconsin. 

Hans Barlien was from Overgaarden, Trond- 
hjem; he seems to have been the second emigrant 
to America from that region. Of him there will be 
occasion to speak more in detail in connection with 
the first Norwegian settlement in Iowa. I desire, 
here, however, to mention five others, who came via 
Gothenburg to America in the same year, namely, 
Erick Gauteson Midboen, Thore Kittilson Svimbil, 
and John Nelson Rue, who had large families, and 



THE FIRST PATHFINDERS 111 

two single men, Gunder Gauteson Midboen and 
Torsten Ingebrigtson Gulliksrud. These form the 
advance troupe of emigrants from the Parish of Tin 
in Upper Telemarken, a region which furnished a 
large share of recruits for the pioneer colonies of 
Wisconsin and Iowa in the forties and the fifties. 
Thore Svimbil became a pioneer in Blue Mounds, 
Dane County, where we shall find him later. Erik 
Gauteson Midboen, who had a large family, settled 
in La Salle County, but, says our authority, "for- 
tune was not kind to him." He later joined the 
Latter Day Saints and undertook a journey to Nor- 
way as a representative of that church, returned to 
America and died soon after, about 1850, as near 
as I can ascertain. Torsten Gulliksrud also settled 
in Illinois, but died early. John Nelson Rue will 
appear later in our account as one of the founders 
of the earliest Norwegian settlement in Winneshiek 
County, Iowa. 

We do not know what the circumstances were 
that led to the emigration of this little group from 
Upper Telemarken in 1837. It seems not unlikely 
that the news of America had come to them through 
copies of letters from Hovland or others, though 
they may also have had information more directly 
through Knud Slogvig's return. The latter does 
not to me seem so likely, however, for they appear to 
have made no attempt to secure passage from Sta- 
vanger. The departure of this group from Tin 
does not seem to have had any immediate influ- 



112 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ence upon emigration from that region. The 
real exodus from Tin does not begin till 1839, 
and then as a part of the general movement, 
but this may have been aided by letters from 
those who went thence in 1837. The number 
that in this way took passage via Gothenburg 
that year may have been larger than we have 
knowledge of. While the number, two hundred, 
which our statistics, cited above, gives as that of 
the emigration from Norway in 1837 is certainly 
rather low, it is highly improbable that it was as 
high as three hundred, as elsewhere given. A con- 
servative and reasonable estimate would seem to 
place it at about two hundred and forty or fifty. 

Among the passengers on the Aegir, we men- 
tioned Nils Froland. He was one of two, the other 
being Mons Aadland, to first join Nils P. Langeland 
in his preparations for emigrating to America. 
With his wife and children, he located at Beaver 
Creek, and they were among the fortunate survivors 
of that colony. In 1839, he moved to Mission Town- 
ship in La Salle County, and to the present Miller 
Township the next year. He died there in 1873. His 
widow (born 1798) was still living in 1895. A 
grandson, Lars Fruland, resides at Newark, Illinois. 

Anders Nordvig, who also came on the Aegir, 
died in the Beaver Creek Settlement. His widow, 
a sister of Knud Langeland, moved to La Salle 
County ; she died there at the age of ninety in 1892. 
A daughter, Malinda, married Iver Lawson (Iver 



THE FIRST PATHFINDERS 113 

Larson Bo), who came to Chicago from Voss, Nor- 
way, in 1844. Victor F. Lawson, owner of The Chica- 
go News, is her son. Another daughter, Sarah (born 
1824), married a Mr. Darnell, a pioneer of Benton 
County, Iowa, in 1854. Mrs. Darnell was the first 
Norwegian in that county. After Darnell's death, 
she returned to Illinois, locating at Sandwich, De 
Kalb County. 

Among the passengers on Aegir, Odd Himle, 
Baard Haugen, Ole Dyvik and John Bjorgo went 
direct to La Salle County. The first of these re- 
turned to Norway in 1844, and, while there, married 
Marie L. Jermo; he returned to America in 1845, 
and settled on Spring Prairie in Columbia County, 
Wisconsin, where we shall meet with him again. He 
died in De Forest, Dane County, Wisconsin, in May, 
1893. We shall also meet John Bjorgo below as one 
of the pioneers of Koshkonong, Wisconsin. Halle 
Vaete died in Beaver Creek, as did his wife and 
grown-up daughter. Kolbein Saue and Styrk Saue 
both went to Beaver Creek and were among the sur- 
vivors; they came to Koshkonong in 1843 and are 
to be remembered among the early pioneers there. 
Styrk Saue was bom in Voss, September twenty- 
fifth, 1814; his wife, Ellen Olson (born Rekve), was 
born in 1816. They were married in America. Nils 
Bolstad settled in Koshkonong in 1840. He was one 
of a group of three to visit Dane County, Wisconsin, 
on a trip of exploration in the fall of 1839, being, 
therefore, the first Norwegians in that county. 



114 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Among the passengers on Enigheden was Hans 
Valder and wife. He was born on the farm, Vaelde, 
in Vats Parish in Ryfylke in 1813. Having re- 
ceived an education he taught school in Tysv?er 
some years before emigrating. Here he heard 
much about the earliest emigration to America 
from Stavanger. In Detroit, Valder and Osten 
Espeland separated from the rest of the party 
and went to Adrian, Michigan. Thence they 
went a few miles into the country in Lenawee 
County to visit a small Norwegian settlement, 
whither Ingebrigt Larson Narvig had recently 
moved from Monroe County, where he had settled 
in 1833. 77 In the spring of 1838 Valder left for 
La Salle County, Illinois. Here he lived until 1853, 
when he moved to what is at present Newburg, Fill- 
more County, Minnesota, and became one of the 
earliest Norwegian pioneers in Minnesota. Osten 
Espeland and family remained at the home of Nar- 
vig a little longer than Valder, but then they also 
went to La Salle County. 

Another passenger on Enigheden was Christo- 
pher Daniel son from Aardal, in Lower Ryfylke. 
He was fifty-seven years old at the time of 
emigrating, settled in Mission Township, La Salle 
County, where his wife died a few years later. 
Danielson died of the cholera in 1849. His son, 
Christopher Danielson (born in Norway), resides 
at Sheridan, Illinois. Thomas A. Thompson, born 

77 See above, page 101, for the circumstances of Narvig 's coming 
to Michigan. 



THE FIRST PATHFINDERS 115 

1812 in Skjold Parish, Ryfylke, settled in Nor- 
way, La Salle County, Illinois. In 1867 he removed 
to Adams County, Iowa, where he died in 1870. 
Lars Richolson and wife also came in 1837, and 
settled near Ottawa in La Salle County. Lars 
Richolson, as, indeed, several of the pioneers 
of these years, soon became one of the substantial 
men of the community.^^ Ole Heier, who also came 
in 1837, from Tin, Telemarken, located in La Salle 
County. He had been an ardent Haugian, but be- 
came a Mormon in Illinois, and later a Baptist. In 
1868 he moved to Iowa, where he died in 1873. A 
son, A. Hayer, lives in Leland, Illinois. Finally 
there came that year Even Askvig with wife and 
children from Hjelmeland Parish in Ryfylke. Set- 
tling first in Indiana (Beaver Creek) they removed 
the next year to La Salle County, Illinois. Late in 
the forties they settled in Texas and at last in 1852 
the parents and a part of the family located in south- 
western Iowa, where Even Askvig died in 1875 and 
his wife in 1881. 



78 Attorney Samuel Richolson, of Ottawa, who died in 1906, was 
a son of Lara Richolson, He was born March twenty-fifth, 1841, on 
the homestead bought by his father in 1837-38. He was for a long 
time member of the firm, Boyle and Richolson, in Ottawa, was mayor 
of Ottawa from 1871-1881, at one time attorney for the Chicago, Bur- 
lington and Quincy railroad. His widow. Marietta Richolson, and 
two children are stiU li\dng. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Ansten Nattestad's Return to Norway in 1838. The. 
Year 1839. Immigration Assumes Larger 
Proportions. The Course of Set- 
tlement Changes. 

The principal event in Norwegian immigration 
history for the year, 1838, is Ansten Nattestad's 
return to Norway. We have seen, above, page 103, 
that Ole and Ansten Nattestad left the Beaver 
Creek settlement in the spring of 1838. Ansten 
went to Norway, as it seems, for the express pur- 
pose of promoting emigration from Rollaug, Nume- 
dal, while Ole went out to explore new fields. Go- 
ing north as far as the Wisconsin line he stopped in 
what is now Clinton Township in Rock County. 
This place suited his fancy and he decided to settle 
here. 

This was July first. ^^ He entered a claim of 
eighty acres and immediately set to work erecting 
temporary quarters. For a year he lived alone, 
rarely coming in contact with a white man, and not 
seeing anything of his own countrymen during all 
that time. ''Eight Americans," he says, ''had 
settled in the town before me, but these also lived 
in about as lonely and desolate a condition as I. 

y9 According to Ole Nattestad 'b letter in Nordlyset for May 
eighteenth, 1848. 



ANSTEN NATTESTAD'S RETURN 117 

I found the soil especially fruitful and the melan- 
choly uniformity of the prairie was relieved here by 
intervening bits of woods. Flocks of deer and 
other game were to be seen daily, and the uncanny 
howling of the prairie wolf constantly disturbed my 
night rest, until the habit fortified my ears against 
disturbances of this kind." The following summer, 
Ole built a cabin in which he received, as we shall 
see below, the first group of immigrants into that 
country in the early fall of that year. 

The year 1838 brought a small contingent of 
emigrants from Voss. They were Steffen K. Gil- 
derhus, Knud Lydvo, Ole Lydvo and Lars Gjer- 
stad.^" Gilderhus went to Cleveland, Ohio, being, I 
believe, the first Norwegian to locate there; he re- 
mained there only one year, however, going to Chi- 
cago in 1839. We shall later find him among the 
pioneers of Koshkonong, Dane County, Wisconsin. 
Knud and Ole Lydvo and Lars Gjerstad went to La 
Salle County, Illinois, and thence to Shelby County, 
Missouri, where the restless Kleng Peerson had the 
year before gone in search of a new locality for a 
settlement in the southwest (see below). 

Before passing on to the emigration of 1839, it 
will be in order to speak briefly of a small group or 
emigrants from Numedal in the year 1838. The 
name of the leader was Ole Aasland, a wealthy far- 
mer of Flesberg Parish. He sold out his farm 
and, taking with him his family and about twenty 

80 As brought out by Nils A. Lie of Deerfield, Wisconsin. 



118 NORWEGIAN UVBIIGRATION 

other persons, whose passage he paid for, he sailed 
from Tonsberg, via Gothenburg, and thence to New 
York. He then went to Orleans County, New 
York.^^ Here it seems he fell into the hands of 
speculators, who sold him six hundred acres of 
marsh land in Noble County, Indiana, for a very high 
price. He removed to that place soon after, it 
seems, with most of those whom he had brought from 
Norway. Sickness set in, brought on by the swamp- 
iness of the region, and many of his party died. 
He thereupon (next year) abandoned the land, tak- 
ing with him the survivors. In the Kendall Settle- 
ment, Andrew J. Stangeland bought the land of 
him for a nominal price. *^ Aasland, who changed 
his name in this country to Orsland, lived on the 
so-called Norwegian Road in Kendall, till his death, 
about 1864. In Kendall, he accumulated consider- 
able property. He left a wife and four children, 
Canute Orsland, and Harry B. Orsland (born 1828 
in Kendall), the fornier occupying the old homestead 
as late as 1895, and Hallock Orsland living in 
Detroit, where a daughter is also living. Let us 
now turn to Ansten Nattestad's journey. 

According to Nattestad's own account he went 
back to Norway in the spring of 1838 via New Or- 
leans and Liverpool. In Dram men he had printed 
his brother's journal. En Dagbog, and Rynning's 

81 The Kendall Settlement. 

82 Aasland did not take anything for it, says Canute Orsland 
in letter of 1895 to R. B. Anderson; letter is printed on page 265 of 
First Chapter. 



ANSTEN NATTESTAD'S RETURN 119 

book was printed in Christiania. He speaks of the 
great interest that these pamphlets aroused as well 
as that of his own return. He says: 

"The report of my return spread like wild fire 
throughout the country, and an incredibly large number 
of people came to me to get news from America. Many 
even travelled eighteen to twenty Norwegian miles to 
speak with me. It was impossible to answer all the let- 
ters that came with reference to conditions across the 
ocean. In the spring of 1839 about one hundred persons 
stood ready to go with me across the ocean. Among these 
were many farmers with families, all except the children 
able to work and in their best years." 

There were, moreover, a host of people from 
Telemarken and Numedal, who could not accompany 
him, as there was no more room in the ship. 

In the meantime these people from Telemark- 
en, not to be deterred long in their plans to go to 
the New "World, immediately set about organ- 
izing their party and went to Skien to seek passage 
there. They were all from Tin and Hjertdal par- 
ishes in Upper Telemarken. The leaders of the 
party were the Luraas family, which was repre- 
sented by four heads of families, in all about twenty 
persons of the total number of forty, composed al- 
most exclusively of grown men and women. They 
embarked at Skien, May seventeenth, somewhat 
earlier than the party from Numedal and arrived in 
America before, hence it is to this group that we 
shall now turn our attention, leaving for the time 
being Nattestad and his party. The Luraas party 



120 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

was in all composed of eleven families, most of 
them being from Tin Parish. We have already, 
under Causes of Emigration, spoken briefly of John 
Luraas, who perhaps was the chief promoter of this 
emigration. 

The party consisted of John Nelson Luraas, 
Knut Nelson Luraas, Halvor Ostenson Luraas, Tor- 
ger Ostenson Luraas, Halvor T. Lonflok, Halvor 
Nelson Lohner, Helge Mathieson, Ole Hellikson 
Kroken, Osten Mollerflaten, Ole Kjonaas, Nils John- 
son Kaasa, and the latter 's brother, Gjermund 
Johnson Kaasa, all of whom had families, be- 
sides three unmarried men, namely. Nils, Ole 
and John Tollefsjord. The Kaasa brothers were 
from Hiterdal; the rest I believe were all from 
Tin Parish. In Gothenburg they met another small 
company of Norwegian emigrants, who had just 
arrived there from Stavanger, bound for Amer- 
ica. This party included Gitle Danielson, the 
leader of the party, from the island of Renneso, 
a little north of Stavanger, and who had a large 
family, Halvor Jellarviken, with family, and Peder 
Eosoino, both with families, Erik Svinalie and 
sister; the party also included John Evenson 
Molee from Tin in Telemarken, who was at 
that time in the service of Gitle Danielson. In all 
there were now about sixty. The journey across 
the Atlantic took nine weeks and the journey from 
Boston to Milwaukee took another three weeks. The 
latter led by way of New York and then by canal 



ANSTEN NATTESTAD'S RETURN 121 

boats, pulled by horses, to Buffalo ; thence by way of 
the Great Lakes to Milwaukee, the most common 
westward route for the early immigrants. This was 
at the close of August. It was the intention of the 
emigrants to settle in La Salle County, Illinois ; but 
in Milwaukee they were induced to remain in Wis- 
consin, and a site for a settlement was selected near 
Lake Muskego in the southeastern part of Waukesha 
County, about twenty miles southwest from Milwau- 
kee. 

A story is told how it came about that they 
did not go to Illinois as originally intended. A 
good-natured fat man is said to have been pointed 
out to them as the product of Wisconsin. On the 
other hand Illinois was described as a hot and un- 
healthy region in substantiation of which a pale, sick- 
ly man was presented as the result of life in that 
state. Whether tliis was done or not I do not know ; 
but the story may serve as an illustration of frontier 
humor and immigrant credulity both. 

Suffice it to say that the people of Milwaukee suc- 
ceeded in diverting the immigrants from Telemark- 
en from going any farther, but selected a site for 
a settlement, as we have said, near Lake Muskego in 
Waukesha County. Then they returned to Milwau- 
kee to perfect their purchase of land there, the price 
paid being the usual one of a dollar and twenty-five 
cents per acre. 

Before reciting further the fortunes of this 
group of immigrants, the first to enter the State of 



122 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Wisconsin, let us turn for a moment to a consid- 
eration of the larger movement. With the year 
1839, emigration from Norway begins to assume 
larger proportions, and certain districts, which hith- 
erto had sent very few, now begin to contribute the 
larger share of the number of emigrants to Amer- 
ica. This year may very properly be said to have 
inaugurated the second period in Norwegian immi- 
gration history. Down to 1839 the immigration 
movement in Norway had not really gone beyond 
the provinces of Stavanger and South Bergenhus 
in southwestern and western Norway. Indeed, near- 
ly all of the emigrants had come from these sections. 
In fact, before 1836 the movement was almost con- 
fined to Stavanger and Ryfylke. In that year it 
reaches Hardanger, and in 1837, Bergen. It does 
not reach Voss properly before 1838, although Nils 
Eothe and wife had emigrated from there in 1836. 
In 1837, as we have seen, the first emigrant ship, 
the Aegir, left Bergen with eighty-four passengers. 
Before 1839 we meet with occasional individual emi- 
gration from provinces to the east and northeast. 
Thus Ole Rynning and Snaasen in Trondhjem Dio- 
cese emigrated in the Aegir in 1837. The first emi- 
grants from Telemarken also came in 1837. As we 
have seen above, 1837 is also the year which records 
the first immigration from Numedal. Among the 
emigrants from other parts of Norway prior to 
1837 must be mentioned also Johan Nordboe, from 
Ringebo in Guldbrandsdalen, who came in 1832 and 



ANSTEN NATTESTAD'S RETURN 123 

resided for some time in Kendall, New York, later 
going to Texas, and Hans Barlien from Trondhjem 
County, who came to La Salle County in 1837. 
Neither of these two men, however, were instrument- 
al in bringing about any emigration movement in 
Gudbrandsdalen and Trondhjem. It is not until a 
much later period that these two districts are rep- 
resented in considerable numbers among emigrants. 
It is the year 1839 in which emigration on a 
larger scale takes its beginnings. Similarly, the 
year 1839 marks a change also in the movement of 
the course of settlement. Down to this time all 
emigration from Norway stands in direct relation 
to the movement which began in Stavanger in 1825, 
and which in the years 1834-36 resulted in the forma- 
tion of the Fox Eiver Settlement in La Salle County, 
Illinois. This settlement then became the center of 
dispersion for what may be called the southern line 
of settlements. All through the forties and the fif- 
ties the southern course of migration westward, 
which includes southern and central Iowa, stands in 
direct relation to early Norwegian colonization in 
New York and Illinois, — that is the first period of 
Norwegian emigration from the provinces of Stav- 
anger and South Bergenhus (and this province only 
as far north as Bergen, Voss being excluded) in 
Southwestern Norway. In 1839 the first settlements 
are formed in Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Mus- 
kego in Waukesha County, and in Rock County ; and 
in 1839-40 that of Koshkonong in Dane and Jeffer- 



124 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

son Counties. These settlements then became a 
northern point of dispersion. From here we have 
a second northern line of settlement westward and 
northwestward into Northern Iowa, Minnesota, and 
the more northerly localities of Wisconsin. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Shelby County, Missouri. Ansten Nattestad's Re- 
turn from Norway in 1839. The Founding of 
the Jefferson Prairie Settlement in Rock 
County, Wisconsin 

Before returning now to the thread of our nar- 
rative, I wish to speak briefly of an early effort, and 
the only one, before the fifties, to found a settlement 
from the southern point of dispersion. 

In 1837 Kleng Peerson, Jacob and Knud Slog- 
vig, Andrew Askeland, Andrew Simonson, Thorstein 
Thorson Rue, several of whom had families, and 
about eight others, left La Salle County, went to 
Missouri and made a settlement in Shelby County; 
this, however, proved unsuccessful, principally on 
account of the lack of a market. 

Peerson does not seem to have selected a very 
desirable locality, and he did not possess the stead- 
fastness of purpose that would seem to be a prime 
requisite in the pioneer. He was too much of a 
lover of adventure, and hardly was a plan brought to 
completion before his head was again full of new 
dreams and fancies. 

He was something of a Peer Gynt but without 
Peer Gynt's selfishness or his eye for the main 
chance ; the roving spirit dominated Peerson wholly ; 
not until old age had laid its hand on him did he 



126 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

yield to the monotony of a settled life ; but even then 
in the wilderness of Texas in the fifties. I have 
personal information of his life there; he took no 
part in the upbuilding of the community, no active 
interest in its progress. In a settled community he 
alone was unsettled; he was never able to gather 
himself together into concentrated action and pro- 
longed effort in a definite cause or undertaking. A 
vagabond citizen, he died in poverty. The only ac- 
tivity we associate with his name is the adventurous 
wanderings of his youth. 

After having spent a year in Missouri Peer- 
son returned to Norway, evidently for the pur- 
pose of recruiting his colony, but I have no evidence 
that he succeeded in this. Independent of Peer- 
son's efforts, the little colony did receive an acces- 
sion of three in 1838, namely, Knud and Ole Lydvo 
and Lars Gjerstad, and of one person in the fall of 
1839, namely. Nils Lydvo, who had just come from 
Voss, Norway, with a group of immigrants from 
that region, most of whom remained in Chicago. 
The Shelby County settlement did not thrive. It 
was too far removed from other settlers, too far 
from a market; the settlers suffered want and be- 
came discouraged. The colony was practically 
broken up in 1840, when most of the settlers removed 
north into Iowa Territory into what is now Lee 
County. Here they established the first Norwegian 
settlement in Iowa. Of this we shall have occasion 
to speak under the year 1840. Let us now return 



SHELBY COUNTY, MISSOURI 127 

to Ansten Nattestad and his party of emigrants, 
whom we left above, page 119, as about to depart for 
America. 

Ansten Nattestad 's party of one hundred then 
sailed from Drammen by the Emelia, Captain Anker- 
son, late in the spring of 1839. It was the first time, 
says he, that the people of Drammen had seen an 
emigrant ship. Every person paid thirty-three dol- 
lars and a half (specie) ; they were nine weeks on 
the ocean, going direct to New York. They took 
the usual route inland and arrived in Milwaukee 
just at the time when the Luraas party had returned 
to Milwaukee to purchase land already selected in 
Waukesha County, as we have seen above. They 
urged the new arrivals to stop in Milwaukee and go 
with them to Muskego, but Nattestad objected, and 
so they continued their journey to Chicago. 

Here Ansten learned that his brother had lo- 
cated in Wisconsin the year before. The party's 
destination was La Salle County, but this changed 
the course of some of them. Some who had friends 
there did go to La Salle County, a few remained in 
Chicago, especially single men, but the majority 
went with Ansten to Clinton. All these (excepting 
some to be noted below) bought land and began the 
life of pioneers there in the fall of 1839 on what 
came to be known as Jefferson Prairie. Besides 
Ole Knudson Nattestad and his brother Ansten, 
those who founded this settlement were: Halvor 
Pederson Haugen, Hans Gjermundson Haugen, Thore 



128 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Helgeson Kirkejord, Torsten Helgeson Kirkejord, 
Jens Gudbrandson Myhra, Gudbrand, Myhra, Erik 
Skavlem, the brothers Kittil and Kristoffer Nyhus, 
and T. Nelson. Halvor Haugen did not come with 
the Nattestad party, although he was in Drammen 
intending to sail on the Emelia. Owing to lack of 
room about thirty persons, including children, had to 
be left behind. Halvor Haugen has himself told 
(in Amerika, September, 1907) of the coming of 
these. After several days of waiting, they se- 
cured passage on a boat bound for Gothen- 
burg, Sweden. The journey went via Fredrikshald, 
where another stay of two or three days took place. 
At Gothenburg a wait of ten days followed before 
the brig Bunyan, on which they were to sail, was 
ready. ' ' It was certainly fortunate, ' ' says our narra- 
tor, " ' that people were not in such haste then, or the 
repeated delays of several days duration would have 
been the cause of much unpleasant irritation. ' ' Land- 
ing in Boston, the immigrants travelled by rail to 
Providence, Rhode Island, thence by steamboat to 
New York. Here they boarded the boat which was 
to carry them to Albany. As they were told the 
boat was not to leave before five o'clock in the after- 
noon most of the men of the party went ashore 
again to purchase food. When they returned how- 
ever the boat had sailed having left at ten in the 
forenoon instead of five in the afternoon as planned. 
Those left behind managed to reach their destina- 
tion also, though with many diflSculties and unpleas- 



SHELBY COUNTY, MISSOURI 129 

ant experiences. From Albany they travelled by 
canal to Buffalo. ' * Of this part of the journey, ' ' says 
Haugen, ''there is nothing to be said except that, 
like all other earthly things, this also at last came 
to an end." From Buffalo the journey went by 
steamboat to Chicago. They did not go thence to 
La Salle County though undoubtedly intended orig- 
inally to do so. I do not know what changed their 
course, but on the next day after arriving in Chica- 
go, they went to Du Page County, Illinois, where a 
week later they met those who had gone with Natte- 
stad in Captain Ankerson's ship. The party whose 
coming has thus briefly been related was composed 
of Halvor Haugen, wife, three sons, Peder, Halvor 
and Andreas, and two daughters Bergit and Sigrid ; 
Halvor Stordok, Lars Haugerud, Gunder Fingal- 
pladsen, Engebret Saster, Lars Dalen, Gjermund 
Johnson, and Sven Tufte, all of whom also had fam- 
ilies, besides some single persons. Halvor Hau- 
gen 's family and most of the party remained in Du 
Page County for a time, and Peder Haugen and his 
brother Andreas and the two sisters secured employ- 
ment there. The father, however, went with Erik 
Skavlem to Jefferson Prairie to help him build a 
house. At Christmas the rest of the party also went 
to Jefferson Prairie. During the winter they all 
lived in Skavlem 's house. This house is described 
as follows : 

"It was sixteen by sixteen and quite low. In order 
to add to room 'crowns' were erected overhead, that is, 
beams which were laid crosswise near the ceilingr. These 



130 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

beams were cut pointed at the ends which were made to 
rest between the logs in the walls on either side, like 
riders across the house. On top of these again was laid 
flats, on which beds were arranged. Down below on 
the floor there were also three beds." 

A writer in Amerika, March first, 1907, quotes 
one of the immigrants as speaking of the cramped 
quarters in the log cabin, in which the whole party 
lived that fall and winter ; room which to one family 
would seem too small now. "How these settlers," 
he says, "could manage in one log cabin a whole win- 
ter is a riddle to me. " The following spring Halvor 
Haugen also built a cabin which was always full as 
newcomers were constantly arriving. At the same 
time other cabins were erected by Kittil and 
Kristoffer Nyhus, Gudbrand and Jens Myhra, 
and Torsten Kirkejorden. Two years later all 
of these built new and more commodious houses. 

The settlement thus founded exclusively by im- 
migrants from the district of Numedal has 
always continued to be recruited largely from 
that region (see, however, below). In the follow- 
ing year a few more families came from Numedal, 
while from 1841 the accessions were considerable 
every year for a number of years. Among these is 
to be mentioned Bergit Nelson Kallerud, from 
V^egli, who also came in the ship Emilia, in 1839, but 
who does not seem to have gone directly to Jeffer- 
son Prairie. She married Jens Gudbrandson 
Myhra at Christmas, 1839, while his brother, Gud- 
brand Myhra, married Ambjor Olson (also from 



4f^c 



Jia^t^StJkiMy, iMlflt C*»vfeflivY^M^ 







^4ir4n»«i' 



r«.jf/^t,(v« 



i^^^^ 



^^^^ 



132 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

VaBgli) in 1840. The following year they, however, 
moved to the Eock Prairie Settlement (see below), 
and in 1852 they settled in Mitchell County, Iowa. 
In connection with the settling of this county we shall 
have occasion to speak again more fully of them. 
Jens Myhra was born in Vaegli, Numedal, in 1812. 

Of the other founders of this settlement I may 
here add the following facts. Ole Knudson Nattestad 
was born at Vaegli, in Eollaug Parish, December 
twenty-fourth, 1807. We have above given an ac- 
count of his settling at Clinton. In Nordlyset for 
May eighteenth, 1848, there appeared a communica- 
tion from Nattestad relative to this occasion, in 
which he rightly claims to have been the first Nor- 
wegian to settle in the state. He married there Lena 
Hiser in 1840 ; he lived in the settlement, as an influ- 
ential, respected member of the community, till his 
death, which occurred at Clinton, May twenty-eighth, 
1886. His wife died in September, 1888. They left 
seven children ; Henry Nattestad, the oldest, at pres- 
ent occupies the homestead. The other children are, 
Charles (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), James (Da- 
kota), Ann (Clinton), Julia (Mrs. Martin Scofftedt 
Lawrence, Kansas), Caroline (Mrs. Louis 0. Larson, 
Clinton), and Eliza (Clinton). Ansten Nattestad 
was born August twenty-sixth, 1813, the youngest 
of three brothers. Ole was the next oldest. 

Their father, Knud Nattestad, was a man of 
some means, but by the right of primogeniture, the 
oldest inherited the estate and he remained in Nor- 



SHELBY COUNTY, MISSOURI 133 

way. Of these things and the early life of the two 
younger brothers, Ole Nattestad gives an account in 
an interview printed in Billed-Magazin, 1869, where 
also is a detailed account of Ansten Nattestad 's com- 
ing to America with his group of one hundred immi- 
grants in 1839. He also there, pages 107-108, gives 
a description of the settlement as it was in 1869, and 
he has elsewhere in the columns of that magazine 
made important contributions to the immigration 
history of the years 1838-1840, which now are among 
the original sources of material for a history of Nor- 
wegian immigration. Relative to the further career 
of Ansten Nattestad I shall only add here that he 
became one of the substantial members of this great 
and growing settlement, in which he continued to 
live until his death on April eighth, 1889. 

Hans G. Haugen was born at Vaegli in Rollaug 
Parish in 1785. He was an old soldier, having been 
in the Norwegian-Swedish War of 1814, and having 
served in the Norwegian army for seven years. His 
wife, whose maiden name was Sigrid Pedersdatter 
Valle, was born in January, 1803. The family con- 
sisted further of two sons, Gunnul and Gjermund, 
the former bom at Vapgli, April twenty-eighth, 1827, 
the latter on September nineteenth, 1836. The fath- 
er, Hans Haugen, lived only a year after coming to 
America; he died in October, 1840. In 1849 the 
widow and two sons moved to Primrose, Dane Coun- 
ty, Wisconsin, where we shall meet with them again. 
Sigrid Haugen died in Beloit in 1885. It may be 



134 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

added here that the family took the name of Jackson 
in this country. Of the circumstances that led to 
the adoption of this name the son gives an account 
which appeared in Anderson's First Chapter, etc., 
page two hundred sixty-three. 

Thore Helgeson Kirkejord ^^ was born Septem- 
ber twelfth, 1812; married in 1837. They had one 
daughter, Christie, bom 1849, and who is married to 
Gunder Larson. ^* Thore Helgeson died in Clinton 
in 1871. Christopher C. Nyhus (Newhouse) was 
bom at VaBgli in July, 1812. When he came to Clin- 
ton Township he first entered claim to forty acres of 
land, which was later increased to a hundred sixty. 
He married a daughter of Halvor Halvorson in the 
fall of 1843. They had five children, Christopher, 
who died in infancy, Oliver, Christopher 2d, Torrena 
(Mrs. Gustav Nelson, Clinton), and Christiana. T. 
Nelson settled on section twenty in 1839 ; he married 
Eachel Gilbertson that year. They had five chil- 
dren. The son, T. T. Nelson, married Mary Tangen 
of Manchester, Illinois, in 1872. They have two 
daughters, Anna R. (b. 1875), Gertine (b. 1878). 



83 Whose name appears as Torro Holgeson in The History of 
Eoch County, Wisconsin, 1879, p. 780, to which work I am indebted 
for some of the facts recited above. 

84 They again have four children. Mr. Larson enlisted in the 
42d Illinois Eegiment, later transferred to the Mississippi Marine 
Brigade, was at the battle of Vicksburg, served faithfully and was 
honorably discharged. 



CHAPTER XV 

The Earliest White Settlers on Rock and Jefferson 

Prairies. The Founding of the Rock Prairie 

Settlement. The Earliest Settlers on Rock 

Prairie 

"We have seen that when Ole Nattestad settled at 
Clinton on July first, 1838, the country was a wilder- 
ness, he being the only white man there. He speaks, 
however, of eight Americans living some distance 
from him, in similar condition. It was less than 
three years prior that the first white settlers had 
located in the county. On the eighteenth day of No- 
vember, 1835, John Inman, of Lucerne County, Penn- 
sylvania, Thomas Holmes, William Holmes, and 
Joshua Holmes, of Ohio, Milo Jones and George 
Follmer, settled on the site of the present city of 
Janesville, opposite the ''big rock." ^^ This was the 
first settlement in Rock County. Inman and Wil- 
liam Jones had visited the locality and selected this 
spot in July of that year. On this occasion they had 
camped on the bluff on the Racine road. Our au- 
thority relates: ''From this point they saw Rock 
Prairie stretching away in the distance to the east 
and south, till the verdant plain mingled with the 
blue of the horizon. They saw before them an ocean 
of waving grass and blooming flowers, and realized 
the idea of having found the real Canaan — the real 



136 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

paradise of the world." They returned to Milwau- 
kee, having in their ten days' exploration of the 
Eock Eiver Valley, found but one family, namely, 
a Mr. McMillan, who resided where Waukesha now 
stands. ^^ Somewhat later in the year came Samuel 
St. John and his wife, the last being the first white 
woman in the county. The next year there were 
several new arrivals. On December seventh, 1836, 
townships one, two, three, and four north of ranges 
eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, of the fourth 
principal meridian, afterwards the eastern sixteen 
of the present twenty townships of Kock County, ^^ 
were taken from Milwaukee County and constituted 
a separate county, called Eock. The county took its 
name from the "big rock" on the north side of the 
river, now within the city limits of Janesville, and 
an ancient landmark among the Indians and the 
early traders. 

All these earliest settlements (1836-1837) were 
made near and along the Eock Eiver. In 1838 there 
were four hundred and eighty settled in this region 
chiefly, the centers of population being already then 
Janesville and Beloit. Next follow Johnstown, 
Lima, and Milton, in the northwestern part of the 
county, and Union. The region west of Beloit, New- 
ark, Avon, Spring Valley, was still wholly unsettled 
in the summer of 1839. The Town of Bradford, the 
next north of Clinton, was first settled by Erastus 
Dean, in 1836; there were very few before 1838. 

85 History of BocTc County, p. 335. 

86 Avon, Spring Valley, Magnolia and Union being added in 1838. 



ROCK AND JEFFERSON PRAIRIES 137 

The Town of Clinton, as originally organized (1842), 
comprised the territory of the present town, the 
south half of Bradford, and portions of Turtle and 
La Prairie. 

The first actual settlement in the present 
township was made in May, 1837, on the west 
side of Jefferson Prairie, by Stephen E. Downer 
and Daniel Tasker, and their wives, on the southeast 
side of the prairie. In July, Oscar H. Pratt and 
Franklin Mitchell, from Joliet, Illinois, made claims. 
These were the earliest. On the west side of the 
prairie settlement was made in October, 1837, by 
H. L. Warner, Henry Tuttle, Albert Tuttle, and 
Griswold Weaver. We recall that Ole Nattestad 
said that when he came to Clinton on July first, 1838, 
there were eight Americans living isolated at con- 
siderable distance from him. Nattestad located on 
section twenty. Here Christopher Nyhus also set- 
tled, while Thore Helgeson settled on section twenty- 
nine. Who the eight settlers were that Nattestad 
met, remains somewhat uncertain, but it does not 
seem unlikely that it was the four last mentioned, 
and some of the first explorers, who are named as 
Charles Tuttle, Dennis Mills, Milton S. Warner, and 
William S. Murrey. 

The Town of Turtle, directly west of Clinton, 
was not organized until 1846. The first settlers were 
S. G. Colley, who located on section thirty-two, in 
the spring of 1838, and Daniel D. Egery, who came 
there about the same time, locating on section thirty- 



138 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

six (to Beloit, however, in 1837). Such were the 
beginnings of settlement east of Beloit prior to 
Nattestad's coming, and it was still virtually a wil- 
derness when Ansten Nattestad's party came at the 
close of September, 1839. West of Beloit, in the 
Town of Newark, the Norwegians were the first, 
while in Avon and Spring Valley they were among 
the earliest groups of settlers. It is the settlement 
of this region, and especially the Town of Newark, to 
which we shall now turn. 

We observed above that some of Ansten Nattes- 
tad's party who came to Jefferson Prairie in Sep- 
tember, 1839, did not remain there. These went 
fourteen miles farther west and established a settle- 
ment in the Township of Newark, which had not been 
settled by white men before, while a few of the mem- 
bers of this latter party went south from there eigh- 
teen miles, crossing the Illinois line, and located in 
the Township of Eock Eun, in Stephenson County, 
Illinois. 

The founder of the Eock Prairie Settlement was 
Gullik Olson Gravdal, of Vsegli, Numedal; he emi- 
grated from Norway with Ansten Nattestad in 1839. 
He came directly to Jefferson Prairie, but did not re- 
main there. With Gisle Halland and Goe Bjono 
he went west a distance to look over the country, 
with a view to settling elsewhere. Having arrived 
at Beloit, they managed here to secure a map and 
from it got some idea of where government land 
was to be had. Then they continued their journey 



ROCK AND JEFFERSON PRAIRIES 139 

along the Madison road seven miles farther west. 
Finally, he came to a place which suited him, for 
he found, as he says, ''good spring water, as also 
prairie and woodland in the right proportion." To- 
gether with Lars Roste, a single man from the Parish 
of Land, he then bought forty acres of land. ^^ Gisle 
Halland bought land one mile farther east, while 
Goe Bjono took a claim on a piece of land for Mrs. 
Gunhild Odegaarden, three miles south of the site 
selected by Gravdal. 

Gunhild Odegaarden (who emigrated from 
Nore, annex parish in Numedal) was a widow of con- 
siderable means, who had paid the passage of sev- 
eral other persons. Her family, among whom were 
grown sons and daughters, emigrated with her to 
America in the Nattestad party and came directly 
to Jefferson Prairie. Immediately after Bjono 's 
purchase of land for her in Newark Township she, 
with family, moved out there and had a log cabin 
erected, this being the first dwelling built in that 
township. This statement is based upon the author- 
ity of Gravdal himself, as printed in an interview 
on page 162 of Billed-Magazin for 1869. The His- 
tory of Rock County agrees in this statement that 
Mrs. Odegaarden 's log cabin, built in the fall of 1839, 
was the first house erected in the Town of Newark. 
Gunhild Odegaarden 's name appears regularly as 
Mrs. Gunale (or Gunile). She is there mentioned sev- 
eral times, her family being extensively intermarried 

87 RoBte later went back to Norway, however. 



140 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

with the old pioneer families in the settlement. ^^ 
Gravdal completed the erection of a cabin late in 
the fall, and his family having been left on Jefferson 
Prairie, he brought them to Kock Prairie in the lat- 
ter part of November {Billed-Magazin, 1869, page 
162). 89 

That same fall Gisle Halland married Margit 
Knudsdatter Nosterud from Eallang Parish, Nume- 
dal, being obliged to go as far south as Rockford, Illi- 
nois, to get the ceremony performed. Their oldest 
child, Kristine, born in the fall of 1840, was the first 
white child born in that township. Gravdal, speaking 
of those days, says : ''When I located in this region, 
the whole country to the west was a desert. I do 
not know whether there lived white people anywhere 
between my home and the Mississippi. The same 
was also the case toward the north; however, about 
seven miles west (east?) from my home two Yankees 
had settled in the wilderness. The Indians were 
still lords of these regions. They often visited us 
in our houses, but they were always friendly and 
courteous. We were never molested by the wild son 
of the desert. There was at this time an abundance 
of game; we saw stags in large herds, and prairie 
chickens literally swarmed." There seem to have 

88 Thus Ole Gulack Gravdal, son of GuUik Gravdal, married Juri 
odegaarden (given as Juri Gunale in The Eock County History) in 
1855. 

89 There can be no doubt as to the correctness of the facts as 
here given. It has also been said that Lars Skavlem 's house was the 
first to be erected, and J. W. C. Dietrichson erroneously even names 
him as the first Norwegian in Kock Prairie. 



ROCK AND JEFFERSON PRAIRIES 141 

been no fresh accessions of settlers until the spring 
of 1841. Then Lars H. Skavlem arrived and located 
on section eleven. Gullik Knudson Laugen also 
came at the same time, and not long after several 
Americans moved in. Both Skavlem and Knudson 
had come to America in 1839, having been members 
of Nattestad's party. Skavlem had, in the interval, 
lived on Jefferson Prairie. Gullik Knudson had re- 
mained in Chicago, as had also Gunnul Stordok, se- 
curing work there, ^° as did also two girls from 
Numedal, to whom they were engaged in Norway. 
These two couples were married the following win- 
ter, and, having saved some money from their small 
earnings, they decided to buy a home somewhere in 
the Norwegian settlement in Rock County. Knud- 
son relates: ''I walked about several days to find 
a location for a home, and at last came to a place on 
the verge of a prairie, where a rushing spring of 
water poured out of the ground. Here I decided to 
build and live, and I called the place Spring en (the 
spring). The land about was like a desert; barring 
the four Norwegians who had come before me, there 
were no settlers. Toward the west one had to travel 
twenty-two miles to find white people. It was for- 
tunate that there was an abundance of game, for 
what we secured by hunting was the sustenance on 
which we chiefly relied during the winter." He tells 
how, with the first fall of snow, he and another ^^ 



90 His wages were from six to ton dollars a week. 

91 Whom we now know to have been Hellik Glaim. 



142 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

walked on skis to Beloit to buy flour, and how the 
tracks left in the snow by the skis had aroused con- 
siderable wonder and speculation among the Amer- 
icans about there, who afterwards discovered the 
tracks, and that it became the subject of extensive 
discussion as to what unknown monster could have 
left such tracks. Beloit, he says, consisted then of 
a mill, a hotel, two stores, and a few laborers' cot- 
tages. 

From the fact of his location near the big spring, 
"Springen," as KJQudson called it, he came to be 
called Gullik Springen ; his sir name, Laugen, he no 
longer used, but wrote himself Gullik Knudson. 
Here by this spring, Knudson built a hut of shrubs, 
thatched with straw, in which they lived for three 
months while the log cabin was being built. ^^ The 
flat cover of a chest, brought from Norway, served 
for a table, and the cooking was done on the ground. 
In December the log cabin was ready. Gunnul Stor- 
dok and wife, who did not come to Newark until Sep- 
tember, lived with Knudson during the first winter, 
after which they removed to Illinois. '^ 

In the summer of 1841 a considerable number of 
Knudson 's acquaintances from Norway came; these 
found a temporary home with Knudson, sharing in 

92 This log cabin is still used as a chicken house on the old 
Springen homestead. 

93 The Bock County History says of Stordok : "He and his 
family lived in a haystack for three months until they had completed 
a log cabin (page 774). As we have seen, it was not a haystack 
they lived in. Stordok 's family consisted, as yet, only of himself and 
wife. 



ROCK AND JEFFERSON PRAIRIES 143 

his genuine pioneer hospitality. Among them were 
Halvor Skavlem and his wife, Berit, the daughter, 
Kari, and two sons, Ole and Paul Skavlem, the latter 
with wife and child, Bessie. Halvor Skavlem died 
one week after their arrival. The son Paul bought 
land; Ole first, however, went to Mineral Point, in 
Dodge County, returning, however, later; he settled 
near Orfordville. Another of this group was Hal- 
vor Nilson Aas, who, with his family, settled near 
Gravdahl, in Newark Township. Knut Kristensen 
also came in 1841 and located on section eleven, 
erecting a log cabin there. Finally, Ole Halvorson 
Valle, who later moved to Iowa, was among this 
number. 

Several of those who had come to Jeffer- 
son Prairie in 1839 removed to Rock Prairie in the 
summer of 1841. Thus, Hellik Glaim, Lars Skavlem, 
and the latter 's three brothers, Gullik, Gjermund, 
and Herbrand; these all moved there upon their 
father Halvor 's arrival from Norway that summer. 
Hellik N. Braekke and Nils Olson Vasgli came directly 
from Norway in 1841. The last mentioned was from 
Vaegli Annex to Rollaug Parish in Numedal. He 
was born at Vaegli Parsonage and was therefore oft- 
en called Nils Prestegaard. He lived at GravdaPs 
the first winter; the following summer he, with two 
others, Paul Skavlem and Hellik Braekke, bought a 
quarter section of land together in section thirty- 
two in Plymouth Township. Nils Vaegli was mar- 
ried in 1844 to Kari Skavlem, daughter of Halvor 



144 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Skavlem; they went to Koshkonong, in Dane Coun- 
ty, to be married by Eeverend J. W. C. Dietrichson, 
who had just come there from Norway. They were 
one of the first couples to be married by him, Hel- 
lik Braekke sold out his share in the land, and in 1852 
moved to Mitchell County, Iowa. Lars Skavlem 
bought land and settled near Halvor Aas, whose 
daughter (Groe Nelson) he married in 1844; hence, 
he was also called Lars Aas. He later bought 
his father-in-law's farm, the place being called "the 
Skavlen farm" (Skavlenfarmen). Gullik Skavlem 
bought land three miles east of Gisle Halland in 
Beloit Township, about three miles from Beloit; he, 
however, moved to Mitchell County, Iowa, in the fif- 
ties. ^'^ Hellik Glaim had stopped in Chicago till 
1840, when he came to Eock Prairie. Ten years 
later he sold out and moved to Fillmore County, 
Minnesota. ^^ 

The above is a brief record of the beginnings of 
the Rock Prairie Settlement. Of some of the found- 
ers of this settlement, which, in a few years, became 
one of the most prosperous in the state, I may here 
add: 

Gullik Gravdal, the nestor of the settlement, was 
born in Veegli, Numedal, in 1802; he died in 1873, 
leaving widow, a daughter, Sarah, and two sons, Ole 
and Tolle. Ole Gravdal was born in Norway in 
1830; he married Jori Odegaarden in 1855, after 

94 Of these various removals to Mitchell County, Iowa, I shall 
speak more fully in the proper place. 

95 Glaim located at Hanley Falls, Minnesota, in 1866. 



ROCK AND JEFFERSON PRAIRIES 145 

which he lived for thirteen years in Beloit, then 
removed to Newark Township. He is at present 
living in Beloit, Wisconsin. Ole Gravdal dropped 
the latter name and used the patronymic Gulack. 
Tolle Gulack Gravdal was born in 1833. He mar- 
ried Bessie Skavlem, daughter of Paul H, Skavlem, 
in 1857. They lived on the farm in Newark until 
1894 (Tolle having lived there fifty- five years), in 
which year they moved to Beloit. He died in Sep- 
tember, 1903, leaving a widow and two children, a 
son, Gilbert Gravdal, in Newark Township, and a 
daughter, Mrs. C. E. Inman, in Beloit. A son, Hen- 
ry, died in 1902, and a daughter, Nellie (Mrs. W. 0. 
Hanson), died in the summer of 1903. Amerika for 
September twenty-fifth, 1903, prints an obituary no- 
tice of Tolle Gravdal, according to which his death 
was sudden, being stricken as he was at work. The 
notice says, ''he was one of those who had tried the 
privations and the trials of pioneer life, and he was 
always ready to extend a helping hand to all who 
needed it. He enjoyed universal respect and love 
for his sincerity and his integrity and his lovable 
nature." Sarah Gravdal, daughter of Gullik Grav- 
dal, married Halvor Halvorson (son of Cleophas 
Halvorson), of Newark Township, in 1869. 

Hellik Nilson Bra>kke married a sister of Rev- 
erend C. F. Clausen's wife; in 1852 he joined the 
latter 's colony of settlers in Mitchell County, Iowa. 
Lars Skavlem was born in 1819. He married Groe 
Nilson Aas in 1844 ; their children are Halvor, Bes- 



146 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

sie, Helen and Carolina. The son, Halvor L. Skav- 
lem, born 1848, is a farmer in Newark Township; 
he married Cornelia Olmstead, in Plymouth, a 
granddaughter of Mrs. Gunild Odegaarden. ^^ Gun- 
nul Stordok moved to Rock Run (see below). It 
seems that he had retained some of his land in New- 
ark, for when Gunder Knudson Springen (brother 
of Gullik Springen) came there in 1843, he bought 
land then owned by Gunnul Stordok. 

We shall now leave, for the present, the Rock 
Prairie Settlement, and observe what was taking 
place elsewhere during the period that has been 
briefly sketched here. 



96 They have two children, Lulu and Lewis. 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Rock Run Settlement. Other Immigrants of 
1839. The Immigration of 1840. 

It has been stated that a settlement was also es- 
tablished in Illinois about twenty miles southwest of 
Rock Prairie, the same year as the latter was set- 
tled, i. e., in 1839. This came to be known as the 
Rock Run Settlement, from the name of the town. 
It lies partly in Stephenson, partly in Winnebago 
County. The locality is prairie, relieved here and 
there by bits of timber land. The foundation of 
this settlement is also to be accredited to an immi- 
grant from Numedal, who came on the Amelia, in 
1839. His name was Clemet Torstenson Stabaek, and 
he came from Rollaug Parish. "With him three oth- 
ers located there in the fall of 1839, namely, Syvert 
Tollefson and Ole Anderson, from Numedal, and a 
Mr. Knudson, from Drammen. Stabaek was a man 
of considerable means. He selected land in Win- 
nebago County, near the present village of Davis. 
His son, Torsten K. 0. Stabaek (born in Norway '^) 
married Torgen Patterson, and they lived on 
the farm until 1884, when they moved to Davis. '^ 
Kristopher Rostad and wife, Kristi, seem also to 

97 Not on tbe homestead, as History of Norwegians of Illinois, 
page 487, has it. 

98 In 1895 he organized the Farmers Bank of Davis, Illinois, of 
which his son, C. O. E. Stabeck, is now cashier. 



148 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

have moved to Rock Run before the close of 1839. 
In the following summer came Gunnul Stordok, to 
whom we have referred under the settling of New- 
ark in Rock County. Stordok lived in Rock Run 
until 1870; he then moved back to Newark, where 
the rest of his relatives who had come to America 
had settled. ^^ Gunnul Stordok was born in Rollaug, 
Numedal, in the year 1800 ; he married Mary Larson 
(of Rollaug) before emigrating. 

Among the earliest arrivals in the settlement 
subsequently was Halvor Aasen, born in Numedal 
in 1823, and who came to America in 1841. For two 
years after coming to this country he worked in the 
lead mines at Mineral Point, Wisconsin, and at Ga- 
lena, Illinois. In 1843 he married Christie Olson, 
and bought a farm in Laona Township, Winnebago 
County, whither he and his wife moved in 1844. 
Here they lived until their death. She died in 1902, 
and he in March, 1905. ^0° 

The Rock Run Settlement was prosperous but 
did not grow to such proportions as its sister settle- 
ments to the north. In later years many of its earl- 
ier pioneers moved back to Rock County, as Stordok 
did, and as Lars Rostad and family also did in the 
sixties. Among those who located at Rock Run in 
the forties were Hovel Paulson (born 1817) from 



99 When he returned to Newark in 1870 he bought two hundred 
acres of land, for which he paid seven thousand dollars. 

100 Their children are Ole Anderson and Andrew Anderson at 
Davis, Illinois, and Mrs. O. H. Lerud at Lyle, Minnesota; four 
children are dead. 



ROCK RUN 149 

North Land Parish, Norway, who located near Davis 
in 1846 ; ^°^ Christian Lunde, also from La»nd, Nor- 
way, came to Rock Run in 1848 and later moved to 
Goodhue County, Minnesota; Narve Stabaek, Tor- 
sten Knudson and Nels Nelson, all three from 
Numedal; Gunder 0. Halvorson, from Kragero; 
Svale Nilson, from Bukn Parish, Stavanger; 
Gunder Halvorson, from Telemarken, and Lars 0. 
Anderson. There appears a very brief account of 
the Rock Run Settlement by Lars 0. Anderson in 
Nordlyset, under date of June second, 1848. Ac- 
cording to this there were at that time twenty fam- 
ilies, twelve unmarried men over twenty years of 
age, six unmarried women of over twenty years, 
while there were thirty-two persons below the age 
of twenty. The whole settlement, he says, numbers 
ninety persons and comprises 4,062 acres of land. 

We have followed somewhat fully the immigra- 
tion movement in Numedal and Telemarken in 1839, 
and we have also noted the fact that that year re- 
cords its contingent of emigrants also from Stav- 
anger Province. It remains here to note briefly the 
growth of the movement in Voss and its spread else- 
where. Nils Lydvo came from Voss in 1839, and 
went directly to his brothers, Knud and Ole Lydvo, 
in Shelby County, Missouri. At the same time came 
Anders Finno, Lars Davidson Rekve, Nils Severson 
Gilderhus, and Anfin Leidal; their destination was 

101 He moved to the Old People's Home in Stoughton in 1903, 
where he died in 1907, his wife having died in 1905. His only son 
was killed in the Civil War. 



150 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

La Salle County. ^^^ The party further contained 
Ole K. Gilderhus, Lars Ygre, Anders Flage, Lars 
Dugstad, Knud Gjostein, Anders Nilson Braskke and 
wife, Knud Braekke and wife, Magne B. Bystolen, 
Anna Gilderhus, and Anna Bakketun. 

This party seems to have arrived in New 
York early in July, 1839, and to have intended 
to go to Illinois. We shall meet with most of them 
later as pioneers in Wisconsin settlements, but for 
a time many of them remained in Chicago, so that 
in the fall of 1839 and the following winter there 
was a considerable colony of Norwegian immigrants 
located in Chicago. Nils A. Lie, of Deerfield, Wis- 
consin, writing of this fact, says there were more 
Vossings in Chicago about 1840 than all other Nor- 
wegians combined. ^°^ Among those who remained 
temporarily in Chicago were Ole K. Gilderhus, Lars 
Ygre and Lars Rekve. The last of these worked for 
a year on a steamer plying between Chicago and St. 
Joseph, Michigan. ^^'^ I shall give a brief sketch of 
him below, under Koshkonong. Anders Finno 
went to Koshkonong, Dane County, in 1840, but 
later settled in Blue Mounds, in the same county, 
In 1850 he went to California with a group of gold 
seekers and has not since been heard from by his 
compatriots. 

Anders Nilson Bra?kke "^ was born at Braekke, 



102 Where, however, they did not remain, as we shall see. 

103 Bygdejaevning, page 43. 

104 Anderson's First Chapter, page 330. 

105 Andrew Nelson Brekke. 



ROCK RUN 151 

Voss, Norway, February twelfth, 1818 ; he had mar- 
ried Inger Nelson in Norway. Braekke located per- 
manently in Chicago, working at first for Mathew 
Laflin and John Wright. He laid the foundation of 
his future fortune in 1845, when he purchased some 
property on Superior Street, on part of which he 
built the residence, where he lived until his death in 
1887. He held many offices of public trust in the 
discharge of which he was able and unimpeachable 
in his honesty. Braekke's first wife died early leav- 
ing three children. ^°^ In 1849 he married Mrs. Julia 
K. Williams; three children by this marriage are 
living. ^°^ 

In the party of emigrants from Voss in 1839 
were also Arne Anderson Vinje (born 1820) and 
wife Martha (Gulliksdatter Kindem). From Vinje 
we learn that the ship, on which the twenty emi- 
grants from Voss came that year, left Norway April 
sixteenth and that they arrived at Chicago in Sep- 
tember. Vinje located first in Chicago; soon after 
arriving he built a log house, in which he and his 
wife lived during the first winter. Anders Braekke, 
it is said, assisted him in the erection of the log 
house. During the winter Vinje worked on a road 
that was being laid out on the west side; for this 
work he received sixteen dollars a month. The next 
July however Vinje together with Per Davidson 

106 They are all dead long ago. 

107 A daughter of theirs is Mrs. J. A. Waite of the Anchor Line 
Steamship Company. I am indebted to Strand's Norwegians in Illi- 
nois (page 215) for some of the facts of Brsekke's personal hiitory. 



152 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Skjerveim (who had just arrived from Voss, Nor- 
way) each with his team of oxen left for Hamilton 
Diggings in La Fayette. Here each took a claim of 
government land; of this we shall speak more at 
length in the chapter on Wiota. 

During the year 1840 emigration from Norway 
was rather limited. There had been a considerable 
exodus in 1839 from Numedal and Telemarken. The 
lull in 1840 may be explained by the fact that in- 
tending emigrants in those regions were waiting for 
favorable news from their relatives and friends who 
had gone the preceding year. The settlers at Musk- 
ego, on Jefferson and Eock Prairies and at Rock 
Run had barely gotten located when the winter set 
in. Communication was of course very slow, and 
spring and early summer was the sailing season of 
Norwegian emigrants in those days. The year 1840, 
however, brought its quota of arrivals from Voss, ^°^ 
namely Kund J. Hylle, Ole S. Gilderhus, Knut 
Rokne, Mads Sanve, Baard Nyre, Brynjolf Ronve, 
Torstein Saue, wife, and son Gulleik, ^^^ Klaus 
Grimestad and wife, Ame Urland and wife, and Lars 
T. Rothe ; there were twenty in all in the party. All 
of these it is said settled in Chicago. "° They all 
came in Captain Ankerson's ship Emelia, the same 
ship which carried Nattestad's party in 1839. They 



108 As also from Drammen, see below, page 159. 

109 Father of Torger G. Thompson of Cambridge, Dane County, 
Wisconsin. 

110 1 gather most of these names from Nils A. Lie's account in 
Bygdejaevning, pages 47-48. 



ROCK RUN 153 

were five months on this journey, arriving in Chicago 
in September. We shall later meet with some of 
these elsewhere. 

A few other names from different parts of Nor- 
way are recorded among the immigrants of 1839. 
We have observed above that Johan Nordboe of 
Ringebo in Gudbrandsdalen had come to America 
in 1832. Though he wrote letters home it does not 
seem that he succeeded in promoting emigration 
from that section of Norway, except individually, 
and then not until 1839. In that year his friend 
Lars Johanneson Holo of Ringsaker, Hedemarken, 
together with three grown up sons came to Amer- 
ica. ^^^ Holo did, however, not go to Dallas County, 
Texas, where Nordboe had settled the year before, 
but he first located in Rochester, New York. A man 
by the name of Lauman from Faaberg in Gudbrands- 
dalen also came with him and went to Rochester. 
He, however, went west a few years later, settling 
in Lee County, Illinois. Holo remained in Rochester 
two years, he and his sons being employed there on 
the canal. In 1841 they went to Muskego, where we 
shall find them in our next chapter. 

Among the immigrants of 1839 we find one man 
from Sogn, the first to emigrate from that region 
to America. His name is Per I. Unde, ^^" and he 

111 The route led by way of Havre and New York. 

112 H. E. Holand writes of Per Unde in SJcandinaven for July 
seventeenth, 1908, stating that he came in 1842. Unde's nephew, 
Jacob Unde of Sherry, Wisconsin, contributes in a later issue of 
Skandinaven some corrections, among them that Per Unde came in 
1839. 



154 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

came from Vik Parish in Outer Sogn. He lived in 
Chicago it seems, the two first years he was in 
America. In 1841 his brother Ole Unde arrived and 
the two went to La Fayette County; we shall speak 
of both of these men later. Among the immigrants 
of 1839 who did not go to Muskego I may here men- 
tion Knud Hellikson Roe and wife Anna and four 
children who came from Tin, Telemarken. They 
went to La Salle County, Illinois, where they lived 
till 1841 ; thence they removed to Eacine County and 
in 1843 went to Dane County, Wisconsin (see be- 
low). 

Ole H. Hanson and wife also from Tin, 
Telemarken, came in 1839. They settled at Indian 
Creek, near where now stands the village of Leland, 
La Salle County, Illinois. The first winter they 
lived in a dugout on the same spot on the homestead 
where the residence now stands. Mrs. Hanson died 
in 1842, Mr. Hanson died three years later. The 
children were Ole, known as Ole H. Hanson, Alex, 
Betsey, Helen, and Levina. Ole Hanson assumed 
charge of the homestead and lived there and near 
Leland till his death in December, 1904. In 1855 
he married Isabella Osmundson, who died in 1873. 
They had six children, one of whom is C. F. Han- 
son, ^^^ State's Attorney, of Morris, Illinois. 



113 To whom I am indebted chiefly for the family history. Alex 
Hanson Uvea at Ellsworth, Iowa. 



CHAPTER XVII 

The Settlement of Norway and Raymond Town- 
ships, Racine County. The Founders of 
the Settlement. Immigration to 
Racine County in 1841-1842. 

"We have seen how in the fall of 1839 the Luraas 
brothers established a colony near Lake Muskego in 
the present Waukesha (then Milwaukee) County. 
The locality was illy selected, being low and marshy. 
It was in the first place unhealthy and the settlers 
suffered much from malaria. Furthermore it was 
very heavily covered with timber and the soil which 
was clay yielded but small returns for their labor. 
The settlers therefore found it difficult enough to 
make a living. 

As early as the next spring several moved 
farther south into Racine County, where the condi- 
tions were more favorable and where a thriving set- 
tlement grew up in a few years. The old settle- 
ment ceased to become the objective point of intend- 
ing emigrants from Telemarken. After the cholera 
year 1849 most of those who survived moved 
away. ^^^ The southern extension of the settlement, 

114 The editor of Billed-Magazin writes, page eleven of volume I, 
that at that time (1869) Kittil Lohner and his brother Halvor Nilson 
Lohner, from Hjertdal, Telemarken, and the family of Gisle Danielson, 
from Skjold, were still living in the settlement. The rest were dead or 
had moved away. But Knud J. Bajckhus, from Hjertdal, and Ole 



156 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

which took its root at Wind Lake in Norway Town- 
ship, later spread out so as to include the townships 
of Yorkville, Eaymond and Waterford all in Racine 
County. The old name, " ' Muskego, ' ' was retained as 
the designation of the new as well as the old settle- 
ment, although the settlement in Racine County is 
now often referred to as ^'Yorkville Prairie." It 
is the beginnings of this settlement to which I shall 
now turn. 

The founders of the settlement at Wind Lake 
in the Town of Norway were Soren Backe, son of 
ToUeff 0. Backe a merchant of Drammen, and 
Johannes Johanneson. The latter was a clerk in 
the employ of Tollef Backe of Drammen, whom he 
latter deputed to accompany his son to America. 
He was a man of about forty years of age, of strong 
character and moral principles. He had some knowl- 
edge of the English language, having once lived for 
a short time in England. Soren Backe was a young 
man, evidently of little promise, whom the father 
sent to America ostensibly that his ambition might 
be kindled by American opportunities and by being 
placed upon his own responsibility. In company 
with them came also a third man, of whom I shall 
speak again in a later chapter, namely Elling Eielson 
Sunve from Voss, a lay preacher and the noted 
founder of the ''Ellingian" sect of the Lutheran 
Church. These three left Drammen in the summer 
of 1839, and arrived in La Salle County in the fall 

Kjonaas, from Bo, had settled west of the colony in the town of 
Vernon. 



NORWAY AND RAYMOND TOWNSHIPS 157 

of that year. The forest land had all been taken and 
was now occupied by settlers, and Johannesen seems 
to have been suspicious of the prairie, where land 
could still be had. 

A contributor to the Billed-Magazin for 1869 
says that the conditions of distress, the winter 
storms and the extreme cold on the prairies were 
the things that influenced them to seek a locality for 
a settlement elsewhere, and that they did not go 
north to Racine County until the spring of 1840. 
He says : ''Early the next spring they walked north 
and came as far as to Wind Lake, where there was 
then a single settler, an Irishman. Here in the 
primeval forest, on the shores of the little lake they 
had found what their hearts desired; and they 
bought the piece of ground which the Irishman was 
cultivating, and Backe chose this place as his home." 
It is to be noted, however, that K. Langeland in 
Nordmaendene i Ameriha says that they remained 
in La Salle County only a few weeks and went north 
to Wisconsin that same fall (page f orty- three). ^'^ 
Langeland adds further, that they dug a cellar in 
an Indian mound in which they lived during the 
winter. 

In touching upon these facts in my article 
on ''The Coming of the Norwegians to Iowa" ^'^ I 
did not hesitate to accept this as correct, and I must 
now adhere to this view. My reason is that as early 

115 Professor Anderson accepts unreservedly the authority of 
Billed-Magazine in the matter and decides for the date 1840. 

116 In The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 1905, page 360. 



158 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

as the middle of the summer of 1840 a small group 
of emigrants were ready to leave for America with 
the view of settling at Wind Lake, having received 
letters from Backe and Johannesen, urging them to 
come there. Had these not located at Wind Lake 
before the spring of 1840 the time would have been 
insufficient for the second party at Drammen to 
have not only received word from America but also 
to have made all necessary arrangements prepara- 
tory to emigrating. I assume then that it was about 
December 1839 that Backe and Johannesen located 
in Norway Township. I am inclined to think, how- 
ever, that Elling Eielson remained in the Fox Kiver 
Settlement during the winter, and that he came to 
Wind Lake in the spring of 1840. During that 
spring and summer the brothers John, Torger, Hal- 
vor, and Knut Luraas, with their families, as also 
Gjermund Johnson Kaasa, located in Norway Town- 
ship. Nelson Johnson Kaasa, who had emigrated 
in the Luraas party in 1839, remained in Milwaukee 
for three months and moved to the settlement in 
November, 1840. 

Among the immigrants of 1837, who went to 
the ill-fated Beaver Creek Settlement in Iroquois 
County, Illinois, was Mons K. Aadland. We have 
already observed that he was the last one to leave 
Beaver Creek. He with family also came to Eacine 
County in the summer of 1840. He however select- 
ed a locality on the prairie east of the Indian 
mound, buying a farm of a hundred and sixty acres 



NORWAY AND RAYMOND TOWNSHIPS 159 

on section thirty in Raymond Township. This part 
of the settlement came to be known as North Cape. 
The nucleus of the later extensive settlement had 
then assumed considerable proportions by the fall 
of 1840; but new accessions were soon to come. 

Backe and Johannesen decided to write to 
friends in Norway and their letters were productive 
of results. In the summer of 1840 a party of about 
thirty persons stood ready to emigrate to the settle- 
ment in Wisconsin. The leader of these was Even 
Hanson Heg, the keeper of a hotel at Lier in Dram- 
men, who sold out his property and with his wife 
and four children came with this party. Other 
members of the party were: Johannes Evenson 
Skofstad, Syvert Ingebretson Narverud, Helge 
Thomson, Ole Anderson, all from Drammen and all 
of whom had families, Ole Hogenson and family 
from Eggedal, and Knut Aslakson Svalestuen from 
Vinje, Telemarken. All these came to Wind Lake 
and located there in the autumn of 1840. 

Soren Backe seems to have been a man whose 
generosity was as remarkable as his lack of business 
ability. His father, a man of considerable wealth, 
had supplied his son generously with funds upon 
his departure for America. Soren Backe evidently 
loaned money very liberally to those of his country- 
men who were in need, and there were many of these 
here as in all pioneer communities. It is said that 
when his funds were used up he made a journey to 
Norway for more money. With this he purchased 



160 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

land, which he let out on easy terms to new comers 
from Norway. It was Johannesen who had charge 
of these transactions in which it seems Even Heg 

/ was a partner with Backe. Johannesen is described 
as a devout christian, a zealous adherent of the Hau- 

^ gian tendency, and in every way a noble character. 
As we have seen, the settlement developed rapidly, 
and it continued to grow for many years. Backe and 
Johannesen then joined partnership and started a 
store; for this purpose an Indian mound was exca- 
vated, the walls were sided with boards, and this 
structure, which was partly underground, served as 
store, living room and kitchen combined. Their stock 
of goods was shipped from Milwaukee, itself then on- 
ly a village of one or two stores, a hotel and half a 
dozen pioneer cabins. Backe and Johannesen con- 
tinued their business together for about three years 
when Johannesen fell ill and died (in 1845). That 
same year Backe returned to Norway and settled 
on his father's farm Valle, in Lier, near Drammen. 
Even Heg was a leading spirit in the settlement 
in Norway and surrounding townships during his 
life-time. Much has been written about him and I 
shall not here repeat the eulogies elsewhere voiced 
in his honor. After Johannesen 's death it was Heg 
upon whom the settlers in the early days of the col- 
ony leaned for advice and it was Even Heg to whom 
every new arrival from Norway to the colony came 
for help and counsel. His hospitality and his re- 
sourcefulness in the aid of his compatriots was 



NORWAY AND RAYMOND TOWNSHIPS 161 

boundless. Heg's barn, where large parties of im- 
migrants were received every summer, and in which 
they were permitted freely to make their home dur- 
ing the first weeks after the long and arduous jour- 
ney, is famed throughout many an early settlement 
in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. The log cabins 
of the settlers were too small to afford the neces- 
sary quarters for the numbers that continuously 
flocked in, and the large barn was a boon for which 
they were truly grateful. For a time Eacine Coun- 
ty became the objective point of most of the immi- 
grants from Norway, a distinction which however 
it was soon to share with the still more famous 
Koshkonong Prairie in Dane County, Wisconsin. 

Of Elling Eielson I shall speak below, as also 
of Hans C. Heg, son of Even Heg, and of some of 
the other Racine County pioneers. I wish to add 
here a few words of Mons Aadland, who as we recall, 
came to America in 1837, and located at North Cape 
in 1840. Aadland was born near Bergen, Norway, in 
April, 1793, being thus forty-four years old when 
he emigrated. He was one of the few survivors of 
the Beaver Creek Colony in Illinois. As we have 
seen, he is the founder of the North Cape branch 
of the settlement. There he lived till his death in 
1869, his wife having died two years before. A set- 
tlers' history says of him: ''He was a man of gen- 
erous spirit, as is shown by his liberal gifts, and one 
who took a commendable interest in public affairs. ' ' 
Ten years before his death he owned between five 



162 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

and six hundred acres of land which he then divided 
among his children. Thomas Adland and Knud 
Adland both of Eaymond Township are his sons, 
while a daughter, Martha, lives in Norway ; the other 
children are dead. ^^^ Mons Aadland was a nephew 
of Nils P. Langeland whom we have spoken of above 
page 100. 

The immigration of 1841 was not extensive. 
Backe and Johannesen do not seem to have contin- 
ued their propaganda of immigration ; but the party 
who came with Even Heg wrote home letters full 
of praise of the New World. But even in the face 
of such tempting exhortations the old world resident 
requires time for thought before he decides to bid 
farewell to the home of his fathers and seek his for- 
tune in a strange and distant land. I am not aware 
that anyone came from Drammen or Telemarken to 
Racine County in 1841. "^ Knut Roe and wife lo- 
cated in Racine County, however, in 1841, but they 
came from La Salle County, where they had settled 
in 1839. In 1842 there were several arrivals. Thus 
Hermund Nil son Tufte with wife Kari and three 
daughters came from Aal Parish in Hallingdal. This 

ll7Mona Aadland had a sister Malinda, the wife of Andera 
Nordvig, who came to America in the same ship as he. Anders 
Nordvig died in Beaver Creek. His wife moved to the Fox Eiver 
Settlement, where she died, ninety years old, about 1892. I have 
above written the name Adland as it came to be written in this 
country. 

118 Nor any from other provinces, for Hermund Tufte who, in 
Holand's De norsTce Settlementers Historic, is said to have come in 
1841, did not come before 1842. 



NORWAY AND RAYMOND TOWNSHIPS 163 

was the first family to emigrate to America from 
that province. "^ In that year came also Aanund 
Halvorson Bjoin, wife and family from Tin, Tele- 
marken, and John Jacobson ; further, Halvor Larson 
Lysenstoen (Modum) from Hadeland, Norway, the 
first immigrant from that region, and Helge Sigurd- 
son and wife Bergit Olsdatter, who however, re- 
moved to Dane County in 1844. ^^o John J. Dale 
from Norway, who had come to America in 1837 and 
settled in La Salle County, Illinois, came to Racine 
in 1842; his wife Anna had died in Illinois in 1839. 
Another of the immigrants of 1839 came to Musk- 
ego in 1842, namely John Evenson Molee. He had 
lived in Milwaukee the preceding three years; I 
shall speak of him below. There were individual 
accessions to other settlements in 1841-42, but they 
are few in number. With 1843 the immigration 
movement receives a new impulse, but the discus- 
sion of that year will better be postponed until we 
have recorded the founding of some other important 
settlements in 1840-42. 



119 See below under Rock Prairie. 

120 The Biographical Beview of Bane County, Wisconsin, 1893, 
page 239, givea 1842 as the year Seamon A. Seamonson came from 
Skien, Norway, to Racine County, his wife and three children coming 
the next year (see later chapter). 



CHAPTER XVIII 

The Establishment of the Koshkonong Settlement 
in Dane County, Wisconsin. 

The genesis of the settlement of Koshkonong 
Prairie ^^^ in Dane County, Wisconsin, the most 
noted undoubtedly of all Norwegian settlements in 
America, dates from 1840. The recital of this event, 
however, will take us back to the preceding year; 
for the first visit of Norwegians to Dane County, is, I 
believe, correctly recorded as having taken place 
in 1839. Before discussing the first coming of 
Norse pioneers to Koshkonong I shall mention a few 
''first settlers" in Dane County, who preceded the 
Norwegians ; to do this will help to give us a better 
idea of the state of wilderness which they found 
there, and which they in a few years transformed 
into a settled and thriving community. 

The townships in Dane County in which the 
Norwegians settled most extensively are found in 
three groups, viz. : in the southeastern, in the north- 
ern and in the southwestern part of the county. 
The first of these comprises originally Albion, 
Christiana and Deerfield; from this region the set- 
tlement soon grew into Dunkirk and Pleasant 
Spring, and from the latter north into Cottage 



121 In reality a group of prairies. 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 165 

Grove. ^^^ On the east it extends into Sumner and 
Oakland townships in Jefferson County. This 
settlement came to be known as Koshkonong Prai- 
rie, though properly the name applies only to 
the two first-named towns and adjacent portions of 
Pleasant Spring and Deerfield. The second settle- 
ment includes the townships of Burke, eastern 
Westport, Vienna, Windsor, and northwestern and 
central Bristol. The western portion of this settle- 
ment is generally known by the name of the Norway 
(or Norwegian) Grove Settlement, from the post- 
office of that name in Vienna Township around which 
it lies. In its northern extremity the settlement ex- 
tends into Columbia County, northeast into Spring 
Prairie and Bonnet Prairie and northwest past the 
village of Lodi. This whole region is in reality a 
northern extension of the Koshkonong Settlement. ^^^ 
It is also from four to eight years later in order of 
formation. ^^'^ Our third group of townships com- 
prises Primrose, Perry, Springdale, Blue Mound 
and that part of Verona Township which lies east 
of Blue Mound Creek. ^25 



122 Later Norwegians settled also in Blooming Grove (west of 
Cottage Grove) and in Eutland (west of Dunkirk), but they always 
remained here a minority of the population. On the north the settle- 
ment extends also into southeastiem Sun Prairie and southwestern 
Medina. 

123 But Spring Prairie was settled slightly earlier than Norway 
Grove. 

124 The settlement enters the Town of Dane (northwestern part) 
on the west. 

125 That is, excluding the southwestern part of the town and 
sections 6, 7, and 18 along its western line. 



166 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

In the Town of Albion the Norwegians were the 
earliest settlers, for some of them came as early as 
the spring of 1841, as we shall see below. The His- 
tory of Dane County, 1880, ^^^ says, page 838, that 
Freeborn Sweet, from New York, was the first set- 
tler in the town; and yet on page 1189 we 
are told that he was ''one of the first set- 
tlers." As he did not arrive until August of that 
year he clearly was not the first. The next earliest 
American settler seems to have been Samuel T. 
Stewart of Massachusetts, who located on section 
fourteen in the fall of 1841. ^^^ The first white set- 
tler in the Town of Christiana was William M. May- 
hew who came in 1837, and located on section twen- 
ty-eight. The next arrivals were Norwegians (see 
below). 

The first settler in Pleasant Spring seems to 
have been Abel Rasdall, who located his cabin 
on the eastern shore of Lake Kegonsa, about half a 
mile south of the inlet ; the year of his arrival, how- 
ever, cannot be given definitely and I am not able 
to say with certainty whether he preceded Knut H. 

126 A work which, unfortunately, contains a great many errors. 

127 In the spring of 1842 Duty J. Green and Jesse Saunders 
came, both from Alleghany County, New York; they settled near 
Saunders' Creek, where Albion village now stands. Saunders had 
lived one year in Rock County. In 1842 also, Samuel Clarke of 
Yorkshire, England, son of James and Judith A. Clarke, arrived, and 
located on Ablion Prairie. John S. Bullis, Giles Eggleston, Lorenzo 
Coon, and Barton Edwards, came in 1842, C. R. Head in 1843, as 
also Adin Burdick, and in 1844 Job Bunting, L. O. Humphrey, R. P. 
Humphrey, Henry Job, Samuel Marsden, and James Wileman. 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 167 

Koe (see below) or not. In tlie Town of Deerfield 
the first settlement was made by Norwegians in 
1840 ; as we shall show below ; however, Philip Kear- 
ney had erected a house on section eighteen in 1839 ; 
he remained the only American there for several 
years. 

The first settlers in the Town of Rutland were 
Joseph Dejean, John Prentice and Dan Pond, who 
located in its southern part in 1842. John Nelson 
Luraas may have been the first settler in Dunkirk; 
he came in 1843, and was followed soon after by 
John Wheeler, ^^^ Chauncey Isham, and Mitchel 
Campbell. In the towns of Cottage Grove, Burke, 
Windsor, and Bristol, Americans preceded Norweg- 
ians by several years, as also in Blue Mounds, where 
Ebenezer Brigham located as early as 1828, or some 
sixteen years before that part of the county actually 
became settled. 

The Township of Springdale was settled first 
in 1844, when John Harlow entered it, he re- 
maining the only white man there for a year. A 
few Americans came in 1845, then Americans and 
Norwegian immigrants in 1846. An American set- 
tlement was effected by Thomas Lindsay and David 
Robertson in the Town of Bristol (section seven) 
two years before Norwegians came there, which 
was in 1847. The earliest settler, however, seems to 
be William G. Simons who entered in 1838. The 
first white settler in Perry Township was John 

128 From whom Wheeler Prairie takes its name. I am inclined 
to think that Wheeler preceded Luraas (see below). 



168 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Brown of Indiana, who came into the town in 1846. 
A few other Americans (as B. K. Berry in 1847) 
preceded the Norwegians, whose coming dates from 
1848. In the Town of Primrose, Eobert Spears and 
family were the first comers (1844); a few other 
Americans had also arrived there before Christian 
Hendrickson located in the town in 1846. We shall 
now turn to the events that led to the establishment 
of the extensive Norwegian settlement on Koshkon- 
ong Prairie in the southeastern part of the county. 

We have seen that most of the immigrants from 
Voss, Norway, who came in 1839, located either in 
Chicago or in La Salle County, Illinois. It has been 
observed also that not all of those who went to the 
Fox River region located there permanently. The 
land here was now mostly taken, besides our pio- 
neers from Voss did not like the prairie ; they were 
in search of a location where timber and water was 
near at hand. And so some of them decided to try 
their fortune in Wisconsin, where they had heard 
there was plenty of forest land with many lakes and 
rivers. 

Our party from Voss had been in La Salle 
County only a few weeks, when three of them de- 
cided to go and investigate for themselves. These 
three were Nils Bolstad, Nils Gilderhus and Magne 
Bystolen. They engaged Odd J. Himle (who had 
emigrated from Voss in 1837), then living in Illinois, 
to accompany them as their guide and interpreter. 
Bystolen, being taken sick and thus prevented from 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 169 

going, gave instructions to the rest to select land 
for him if the region was satisfactory to the rest. 
Bolstad, Gilderhus and Himle started on foot for 
Milwaukee, a distance of a hundred and fifty miles. 
Having arrived there in safety, they procured maps 
and whatever information they could with reference 
to the regions that were open to settlement in the 
interior of the state. Then they walked west about 
eighty miles inspecting the land on the way, and 
after two weeks reached the eastern part of Dane 
County. 

The spot where they stopped was about two 
miles east of the site of the present village of 
Cambridge. Here a man by the name of Snell had 
shortly before established a tavern for trappers and 
frontiersmen; with him our party of homeseekers 
put up, and from him they received instructions as 
to the ''government markings" of the sections and 
the stakes placed at the corner of sections and quar- 
ter sections, giving the number of each. 

After a two days' rest they continued their 
tramp westward to Koshkonong ^^^ Prairie. Himle, 
Gilderhus and Bolstad inspected the whole prairie 
from one end to the other, walking about for two 
days. Then they returned to Cambridge, finally 
deciding on a parcel of land a little over two miles 
northwest of that place, lying on both sides of the 
boundary line between the towns of Christiana and 
Deerfield. Here Gilderhus and Bolstad selected for- 

129 The prairie takes its name from Koshkonong Creek (and 
Koshkonong Lake). 



170 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ty acres each, and forty for Bystolen. This locality 
was chosen because of its abundance of hardwood 
timber, and besides there was plenty of hay on the 
the marshes and fine fishing in Koshkonong Creek 
near by. ^^° 

Having thus made their choice of land, Gil- 
derhus, Bolstad, and Himle returned to Illinois by 
way of Milwaukee, walking the whole distance ; they 
remained in La Salle County through the winter. 
Their account of the land of promise which they had 
discovered, aroused much interest, and, as we shall 
see below, brought others in their train later. Early 
in the spring of 1840, Gilderlms and Bolstad, accom- 
panied now by Magne Bystolen and also Andrew 
Finno, started for Koshkonong, driving, this time, 
in wagons drawn by oxen. They arrived there at 
the end of April and immediately took possession 
of the land selected. The land that had been chosen 
for Bystolen was inside the Christiana Township 
line, where Anders Finno also now located. Nils Gil- 
derhus 's land lay within Deerfield Township ; he was 
the first Norwegian to locate there. He built a log 
cabin, which was the first house in the town. Nils 
Gilderhus and, I believe. Nils Bolstad, soon after 
walked to Milwaukee and filed their claims at the 
government land office. Nils Gilderhus being the 
first in the party to purchase land. The date of the 

130 As Mr. Odland points out. Odland adds: "They were all 
Vossings and to emigrants from that celebrated district in Norway, 
therefore, belongs the credit of founding the most important Nor- 
wegian settlement in America." (Article in Amerika). 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 171 

purchase is May sixth, 1840; the land is the south 
half of the southwest quarter of section thirty-five. 
Nils Bolstad entered on forty acres of section two 
in the Town of Christiana, and Magne Bystolen's 
forty acres lay directly east of Bolstad 's in the same 
section. ^^^ 

Their first habitation was a hurriedly built 
log cabin; it was not plastered, and, as we can be- 
lieve, proved inadequate as a protection against win- 
ter, which was already setting in. Here they expe- 
rienced the intensest suffering from cold, ^^^ until, 
the condition becoming intolerable, they dug out a 
cellar against an embankment, where they lived dur- 
ing the remainder of the cold season. In this "dug- 
out" Nils Gilderhus and Magne By stolen continued 
to live another year, but Nils Bolstad erected a log 
cabin in 1841, when he married Anna Vindeig, who 
was the first white woman in the locality. Gilder- 
hus erected a cabin in the town of Deerfield near the 
Christiana line in 1842, but he sold out in 1843 to 
Gulleik Thompson Saue; for further facts about 
these men see below. Andrew Fenno and Odd Himle 
did not purchase land. ^^^ 

We shall now turn to the two other groups of 
settlers on Koshkonong in 1840. 

131 Their names are recorded in the land office as Nils Seaverson, 
Nils Larson and Magany Buttelson. 

132 Odland writes: when they had finished their work outside, 
they were obliged to lie down on their beds and cover up with robes 
in order not to freeze. 

133 Himle settled some years later at Norway Grove, Dane Coun- 

ty. 



CHAPTER XIX 

The Settling of Koshkonong by Immigrants from 

Numedal and Stavanger in 1840. Other 

Accessions in 1841-1842 

Among the immigraiits who came from Rollaug, 
Numedal, in 1839, was Gunnul Olson Vindeig, 
though, as we have seen, he did not come in Natte- 
stad's party. Through the illness of a child he was 
prevented from emigrating with Nattestad, as he 
had intended. Coming later in the year, he went 
via Chicago, directly to Jefferson Prairie, where he 
remained during the winter. In the early spring 
of 1840, about the time our Vossings, spoken of 
above, are moving north to locate on their claims, 
Vindeig built or bought a boat at Beloit, and 
this being ready, he, with a companion, Gjermund 
Knudson Sunde, rowed north along the Rock River, 
up Koshkonong Lake and Koshkonong Creek, into 
the Town of Christiana. 

That the journey should have been made in 
a boat up Rock River against the stream, may 
sound like a legend; why not have walked this 
comparatively short distance (about forty miles), 
just as Gilderhus and party had walked the much 
longer distance from La Salle County? The Nor- 
wegian pioneers were good walkers and seem to 
have loved walking. Vindeig evidently did not. 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 173 

That he actually navigated up stream I take, how- 
ever, not to be merely a local or family legend, for 
it is vouched for by his subsequent neighbors and 
comes down to us on good authority. I myself vis- 
ited Ole Gunnulson, Vindeig's son, who is still re- 
siding on the old homestead, last August (1908), and 
also received his confirmation of the route his father 
took in the spring of 1840. Lars Lier, a neighbor 
of Ole Gunnulson, is cited by Prof. R. B. Anderson 
as having been told by Gjermund Sunde himself, 
that they had tied the boat a little below the Anik- 
stad ford, where the Funkeli bridge was afterwards 
built. Evidence comes also from some of the oldest 
pioneers of the locality, as Halvor Kravik and Jens 
P. Vehus. 

Gunnul Vindeig and Sunde returned soon after 
to Beloit, as they had come, by way of the Rock 
River. Thereupon Vindeig, with his wife, Guri, and 
two sisters, moved from Jefferson Prairie via Milton, 
to Koshkonong, driving in a covered wagon, and 
proceeded to take possession of the land he had se- 
lected. He soon had erected a cottage of one room, 
with an attic accessible by ladder. ^^'* The land 
which Vindeig located on is the south half of the 
northwest quarter of section thirty-four. There he 
lived until his untimely death by accident in October, 
1846. 135 

Gjeimund Sunde selected forty acres of 

134 Anderson's First Chapter, page 338. 

135 He was killed by a loaded wagon tipping over him. 



174 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

land directly north of Vindeig's home, which he 
later, however, . sold to Ole Lier. The land which 
Vindeig purchased was recorded in the land office 
at Milwaukee on May twenty- second, 1840, just six- 
teen days after the purchase by Gilderhus and Bols- 
tad was recorded. There has been much discussion 
as to whether the Vossing party or Vindeig built 
the first house in the Town of Christiana. Our first 
group of settlers had selected their land the fall be- 
fore and came north in April, 1840. We have seen 
that the large log-cabin they constructed was hastily 
and poorly built. I assume that either they all to- 
gether, erected this immediately upon arriving and 
taking possession of their claims in 1840; or else, 
the hewing of timber and the erecting of the cabin 
was begun by the two who remained, while Gilderhus 
and his companion went to Milwaukee to file their 
claims. It might then have been built at the close 
of April, or more probably, the beginning of May. 
Now Vindeig's purchase was recorded May twenty- 
second; but as he seems to have gone direct from 
Jefferson Prairie to Koshkonong, he evidently had 
built his cottage and shelter for the family before 
he started for Milwaukee. There can, therefore, 
have been very little difference in time between the 
two. Absolute proof of the priority of either, it is 
not possible to obtain, it seems to me, but I am in- 
clined to think the cottage erected by Gilderhus, 
Bolstad, and party, was the first. 

Let us now turn to our third group of settlers* 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 175 

most of them immigrants from Stavanger, who 
were Hving in La Salle County. These four men 
were Thorsten Olson Bjaaland, Amund Anderson 
Hornefjeld, Bjorn Anderson Kvelve, and Lars Ol- 
son Dugstad. The first of these — Bjaaland — 
had come in the sloop in 1825 ; he is the only slooper 
who came to Wisconsin, and the last of that party 
whom we shall meet in our excursion down through 
the years of immigration. The second of this 
group was also from the Province of Stavanger, be- 
ing born on the Island of Moster in 1806. We have 
seen that he came to America in 1836, and that he 
had settled in La Salle County, where he lived for 
four years. The third member of the party, Bjorn 
Kvelve, we have also met with among the arrivals 
of 1836; he had been living mostly in Chicago and 
La Salle County. He had come from Vikedal Parish 
in Ryfylke. Three other men, Erick Johanneson 
Savik, Lars Scheie, and Amund Anderson Rossaland, 
intimate friends of Kvelve, were of the party, but 
these did not settle on Koshkonong. 

In the spring of 1840, these seven men decided 
to go north in search of homesteads. ^^^ From 
Gilderhus and Bolstad they had received informa- 
tion of Koshkonong and they decided also to go 
there and inspect the locality. About the middle of 

136 For these facts I acknowledge indebtedness chiefly to Prof. 
R, B. Anderson, who is a son of Bjorn Anderson Kvelve; he gives 
an account of the journey of these men on pages 347-354 of hia 
book, and a sketch of his parents pages 155-165; see also page 171, 
and 245. 



176 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

May, I take it, they started on foot for Wiscon- 
sin. The way led by Shabbona Grove, in De Kalb 
County, through Rockford, Beloit, Janesville, and 
Milton. They crossed the Rock River at Good- 
rich's Ferry, now Newville, then pushed on until 
they reached the southern line of Dane County, stop- 
ping in the Town of Albion, near Koshkonong 
Creek, ^^^ and about four miles north, slightly by 
east, of Lake Koshkonong. Here they found coun- 
try that suited them in every way. Bjorn Kvelve is 
said to have exclaimed: ''This is indeed the Land 
of Canaan!" Here woods were plentiful, the soil 
was rich, a vigorous winding stream teeming with 
fish, ran near by, and not far off there was a large 
lake. 

We see that the Stavangerings, as the Voss- 
ings, looked for wood and water; they did not real- 
ize the superior advantages of the prairie, and that 
it would yield much quicker returns for their labor. 
And yet there was good reason for their choice, and 
we shall find that quite often the early Norwegian 
pioneers located in a woodland tract near a stream 
or a lake. It was undoubtedly an inducement to 
build near a wood, where the timber for the usual 
log-cabin was near at hand, and it was highly de- 
sirable to locate within access of that primary neces- 
sity of life, water. In this region, then, our party 
selected land. Amund Hornefjeld chose the east 



137 Then a little river; now it is almost dried out. 



KOSIIONONG SETTLEMENT 177 

half of the southeast quarter of section one, '•'^ and 
Bjorn Kvelve, the west half of the same quarter 
section. 

Thorsten Bjaaland chose eighty acres im- 
mediately north of Kvelve 's, consequently in section 
two, while Lars Dugstad took the east half of the 
southwest quarter of section one. Having made 
these selections, ^^^ they walked to Milwaukee to file 
their claims and perfect their purchase. ^''^ This is 
recorded at the land office under date of June twen- 
ty-second, 1840, just one month, therefore, after en- 
try was made of Vindeig's claim in section thirty- 
four in Christiana, the next township and section 
north. Amund Rossaland selected a piece of land 
near that of Bjorn Kvelve, but he was later informed 
that it had already been taken ; ^'^^ so Rossaland did 
not settle on Koshkonong, but went to Jefferson 
Prairie, as did also Lars Scheie, thence again else- 
where. 

The whole party then returned to La Salle 
County, Illinois, and did not move to Albion Town- 
ship and take possession of their land before the 
spring of 1841. Erik Savik became ill upon their 
return to La Salle County ; when he was asked if he, 

138 So the description reads but the Amund Anderson homestead 
is the east half of the northwest quarter, and the Kvelve homestead 
is directly south. 

139 Thorsten Bjaaland and Amund Hornef jeld built shanties on 
their land before leaving. 

140 Their names are given as: Omund Anderson, Birn Anderson, 
Lars Olson, and Foster Olson. 

141 It was soon after taken possession of by William Fulton, 



178 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

too, didn't wish to go along to Milwaukee and pur- 
chase land, he answered: "I think I can get a bit 
of ground here from Ole Middlepeint." ^^- His 
prophecy proved true, for he died there in June, 
1840. Erik Johanneson Savik and wife, Ingeborg, 
had emigrated from Kvindherred in 1836, locating 
in Rochester, New York. A son, John, was born to 
them there in December, 1836. The following year 
they seem to have removed to La Salle County, Illi- 
nois. Their daughter, Anne Berthe, was born there 
in November, 1838. 

Early in the spring, Kvelve and Bjaaland moved 
to Koshkonong with their families, following the 
same route they had taken before. Bjaaland drove 
a yoke of oxen, and Kvelve a yoke of black steers, 
which were not yet broke, says Arnold A. Ander- 
son, oldest son of Kvelve, and who was in the 
party; both teams were hitched to a wagon owned 
by Kvelve. Kvelve 's family consisted, at the time, 
of wife and four children, two daughters having been 
born since the arrival in America in 1836. ^'*^ Thor- 
sten Bjaaland (born in 1795 in Haa Parish, about 



142 That is, Ole O. Hetletveidt. This incident is related in Amer- 
ika in September, 1903; the words were: eg faar meg nok ein Flsek 
Jord her hos ban Ola Meddlepeint. 

143 Arnold Andrew Anderson was born in Norway in 1832. The 
second son of Kvelve, Augustinus Meldahl Bruun, was born in 1834. 
A daughter was born and died in Rochester, New York, where the 
Kvelve family lived 1836-37. Elizabeth was born in La Salle County, 
Illinois in 1837, and Cecelia in 1840. A daughter, Martha, was born 
in Albion Township in the fall of 1841, being, it seems, the first white 
child born in the town. 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 179 

thirty [American] miles south of Stavanger, Nor- 
way) was still immarried when he came to Dane 
County, as was also Lars Dugstad. The latter evi- 
dently came north from La Salle County about the 
same time as Kvelve and Bjaaland. Amund Home- 
fjeld married Ingeborg Johnson, widow of Erik 
Savik, in La Salle County, in June, 1841, and he, 
with wife and her two children, came north to Albion 
a few weeks later. 

It was, therefore, just twelve persons who locat- 
ed in northeastern Albion Township that spring. 
The Hornef jeld family moved directly into the shan- 
ty Amund had built before leaving in 1840. Dugstad 
made a dugout on the side of a hill near the creek, 
in which he continued to live till 1855, when he mar- 
ried and moved into a large log-house. Bjom 
Kvelve erected a log-house on his farm immediately 
upon arriving in 1841, the logs having been cut by 
men engaged to do so, during the winter of 1840-41. 
These men were Lars Kvendalen and Knut Olson 
Vindeig. We shall now pass to the account of their 
arrival, and that of others who came in 1840-41. 



CHAPTER XX 

New Accessions to the Koshkonong Settlement in 
1840-1841. The Growth of the Settlement in 1842. 

As the first explorers of Koshkonong from La 
Salle County, Illinois, in 1839, attracted others in 
their train from the same region the following year, 
so Jefferson Prairie and Chicago sent new recruits 
following Gunnul Vindeig in the summer of 1840. 
The first of these were the two we have mentioned 
at the end of the preceding chapter, namely, Lars 
Kvendalen and Knud Vindeig, a brother of Gunnul ; 
both were single men. They came there early in the 
summer of 1840, and met in Albion Township Bjorn 
Kvelve and Lars Dugstad before these had left for 
Milwaukee and Illinois in June, 1840. Knud Vin- 
deig and Lars Kvendalen (the latter also from 
Numedal) came to America in the fall of 1839. An- 
other brother of Gunnul, namely Hellik Vindeig, 
and two sisters, Berit and Anna, came to America 
in the fall of 1840. As said, Kvelve met Knud Vin- 
deig and Kvendalen in Albion Township in the sum- 
mer of 1840, and he engaged them to split rails dur- 
ing the winter of 1840-41, so as to have them ready 
at hand when he should come there to locate with 
his family in 1841. ^^^ These two men did not take 

144 See above, page 179. 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 181 

land, but worked for a time for others in the settle- 
ment. 

In the autumn of the same year came Hellik 
Vindeig and Nils Kvendalen (generally called Nils 
Hailing), but the latter did not remain there long. 
The sister, Anna, married Nils Bolstad in 1841 (see 
above, page 171). About a year later Berit mar- 
ried John G. Smith, a man who played a role as both 
doctor and preacher among the pioneers in the for- 
ties. There were no further additions to the south- 
ern part of the settlement in the fall of 1840, so far 
as I know. 

Late in the fall of that year Lars David- 
son Rekve ^'^^ came to Koshkonong and selected land 
in the Town of Deerfield. Entry of this was made at 
Milwaukee on December eighth, 1840; the land was 
the south half of the southwest quarter of section 
twenty-eight, about a mile south of Deerfield, and 
two miles northwest of the eighty acres selected by 
Gilderhus in the spring. Together with Rekve came 
also Ole K. Gilderhus, who had immigrated from 
Voss, Norway, in 1839. When they reached Albion 
they stopped over night at the house of Thorsten 
Bjaaland, who had not yet returned to Illinois for 
the winter. Then they travelled north until they 
came to the place where the four settlers from Voss 
had erected a log cabin the spring before. Not hav- 
ing the means wherewith to make improvements on 

145 L. D. Keque is still living in Deerfield, Dane County, Wis- 
consin. 



182 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

his land, Kekve soon after (summer 1841) went to 
Muskegon, Michigan, where he secured employment 
in a sawmill. He did not settle in Dane County be- 
fore 1842. 

If now we pass on to the year 1841, we shall find 
that there were several accessions to the Koshkon- 
ong settlement in that year. It is to be observed, 
first, that a small group of immigrants came from 
Voss in 1841. They were: Anders Nilson Lie, with 
wife, Gunvor Sjursdatter (Gilderhus), and two chil- 
dren, Rasmus Grane, Ole Grane, Kolbein Vestreim, 
Nils Vikje, Lars J. Mon, Knut Larson Boe, and 
Anna Solheim. These had emigrated with a small 
brig that carried iron to Boston; thence they went 
to Racine County, Wisconsin, and Koshkonong, by 
the usual route. John Haldorson Bjorgo, who had 
emigrated from Voss in 1838, as we have seen, also 
came to Koshkonong in the spring of 1841, and Ole 
Severson Gilderhus ^"^^ came a short time after. The 
latter had emigrated in 1840, having remained in 
Chicago during the winter. Bjorgo settled in the 
Town of Christiana in section nine, Ole Gilderhus a 
little farther north in Deerfield Township. "None 
but Norwegians were then living in these regions," 
writes Bjorgo twenty-seven years later. ^^^ Bjorgo 
and Ole Gilderhus had, of course, arrived before 
Anders Nilson Lie. 

During the first winter John Bjorgo lived in 

146 A brother of Nils Gilderhus. 

147 Interview printed in Billed-Magasin, 1869, page 387. Late 
in the summer of 1841 a few Americans came and settled there. 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 183 

a small log-house ; his nearest white neighbor lived 
about three miles away. As he was unmarried 
he was obliged to cook and do all his own house- 
work. Near by an Indian tribe had erected a camp, 
where they remained from that fall until the next 
spring. Bjorgo says of them that they were friend- 
ly and neighborly, and he never suffered inconven- 
ience because of them; "they were often my guests, 
as I also \^sited them, and it never occurred to me 
to have any fear of the son of the desert. Nor did 
they ever give me cause for that; for they were 
peaceful and gladly shared their meagre supplies 
with those who needed their help. ^'^^ 

Let us now return to the party of eleven persons 
who came with Anders Lie. The son, Nils A. Lie, 
Deerfield, Wisconsin, writes that after a long and 
trying voyage they arrived in Boston whence they 
went to Racine, arriving there in December. 
There they hired two Swedes to take them to 
Muskego, where the Lie family and one other fam- 
ily stopped with Even Heg. Lie's destination was 
the home of his brother-in-law. Nils Gilderhus, in 
Dane County. Leaving his family, he soon after 
set out on foot for Koshkonong, not meeting anyone 
he could speak with before he reached Fort Atkin- 
son. Plere an American took him across the Rock 
River in a canoe, and by waiting there a day he was 

148 John Bjorgo died in October, 1868 ; his wife, Martha, died 
in May, 1898. They are both buried in West Koshkonong Cemetery, 
as Rev. G. G. Krostu of Utica, Wisconsin, informs me. 



184 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

joined by two immigrants from Numedal, ^'*^ who 
walked with him as far as Koshkonong. Thence he 
continued north to his brother-in-law's place in Deer- 
field Township. We have seen that Nils Gilderhus 
made a dugout early in the winter of 1840-41, having 
found the cabin they had built in the spring too cold. 
In this dugout Anders Lie and family ^^° also lived 
during the winters of 1841-42 and 1842-43. In the 
meantime Anders Lie worked for others, saving up 
all he could with a view to buying a home for him- 
self. 

In 1843 he bought forty acres farther west 
in the northeast corner of the town of Pleasant 
Spring, becoming the first Norwegian to settle in 
that township ; selling this out in the fall of 1844 to 
Peder Gjerde, he located on section thirty-two in 
Deerfield Township, where he lived most of the time 
till his death in 1907. ^^i 

Just how long the rest of Anders Lee's party 
remained in Muskego I am not able to say at this 
moment. Nils Lie writes in 1902 that they all came 
to Koshkonong, and I accept that as authoritative; 

149 These may have been Hellik Vindeig and Nils Kvendalen. 

150 The family being sent for soon after; his wife, Gunvor 
Sjursdatter, was born in 1805; the children were Martha (born 
1838) and Nils (born 1841). 

151 After his wife's death he lived some years in North and 
South Dakota. Anders Lee was born in 1814, and attained there- 
fore to the good old age of ninety-two. His wife died in 1876; they 
were married three years before leaving Norway. Anders Lee left 
three sons, Nils A. in Deerfield, Sever Lee in Grafton, N. D., and 
Andrew Lee of Washington County, N. D. 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 185 

but I may add that the names of Grane, Vikje, Ves- 
treim, Mou, or Boe, do not ajjpear in the roll of mem- 
bers of Reverend J. W. C. Dietrichson's church in 
Koshkonong for the years 1844 to 1850, which is 
elsewhere published in this volume. Nor have I 
been able to trace them in the towns of Christiana 
or Deerfield in the years 1842 to 1844. They do not 
appear as purchasers of land, and probably left for 
other regions soon after coming to Koshkonong. 
One member of the group who came from Voss in 
1839, with Ole K. Gilderhus and others, did soon 
after come to Koshkonong, however, namely, Knut 
Brapkke. He and his wife located in Deerfield Town- 
ship in 1843 ; it was he who, in 1844, bought the large 
log-cabin built by Nils Gilderhus in 1840. He then 
removed it farther southeast (in the same town), 
where later it became the property of Erik Lee, 
the father of Andrew E. Lee, of South Dakota. ^^^ 
There were also several accessions from Nume- 
dal in 1842. The first of these, I believe, were Jens 
Pederson Vehus, from Nore Annex of Rollaug Par- 
ish, Numedal, and Thore Knudson Nore and sons, 
Knut, Lars, Ole and Sirbjorn, also from Nore. *" 
With them came also Halvor Funkelien, a native of 
Kongsberg. Jens Vehus was a brother of Gunnul 
Vindeig's wife. All three of these came directly 
from Norway. Jens Vehus settled about three-quar- 
ters of a mile southeast of Gunnul Vindeig, on the 



152 Andrew E. Lee was governor of South Dakota from 1896-1900. 

153 There Nore located across the Jefferson County line. 



186 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

north half of the northeast quarter of section thirty- 
five. Later in the summer, and in the fall, this local- 
ity received new recruits from Numedal, who came 
for the most part directly from Norway via New 
York, Milwaukee, and Muskego, to Koshkonong. 
Others came from Chicago, La Salle County, and Jef- 
ferson Prairie, principally to the towns of Christiana 
and Deerfield. 

Among the immigrants from Numedal who 
located there later in the year of 1842 were: 
Ole Helgeson Lien, wife Turi, ^^^ and children, Bar- 
bro and Ole, from Nore; Niels Olson Smetbak, wife 
Barbro Olsdatter, and family, from Nore; Mrs. Ole 
Bakli (Basfley), widow, and her son, Ole, from 
Flesberg; Bjorn Guldbrandsen Morkvold, wife As- 
bjor and son, Guldbrand; Hellik Gunderson Hvas- 
hovd and wife, Marit, from Flesberg; Hellik 's par- 
ents, Gunder Gunderson Hvashovd and wife, Kirsti ; 
Mari Guldbrandsen (cousin of Gunnar Hvashovd) 
and her daughter, Kristi (born Kristoffersen 
1826) ; Herbrand Tollefson Morkvold and son, Ole, 
and daughter, Eagnild ; Torstein Levorsen Bergrud, 
wife Kirsti Gundersdatter (born Hvashovd) and 
son, Levor, from Flesberg; Thore Olson Kaasa, 
wife Anne Torsteinsdatter, and daughter Aslau, 
from Rollaug; Ole Amundson Buind, wife Helene 
(Brandt), and daughter Anne, from Flesberg; 
Gjertrud Olsdatter Saelabakka (born 1822), from 



154 Turi Lien, whose maiden name was Smetbak, was bom in 
1811; she died in 1899; Ole Lien died in 1850; the widow then 
married Lars T. Nore. 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 187 

Rollaug; Juul Gisleson Hamre (born 1805), 
with wife Anne Gundersdatter, and children, 
Gisle, Kjersti, and Gunder, and his sister, Anne 
Gislesdatter, from Flesberg (born 1797) ; Hellik Hel- 
liksen Foslieiet (born 1812), his wife Sigrid, and 
children, Hellik (born 1833), Anders (born 1835), 
Marit (born 1838), Christoffer (born 1841). ^^s 

Of those mentioned here the Hvashovd, Hamre, 
and Bergrnd families, Mari Gulbrandsen and her 
daughter, Christi, and one or two more, nineteen in 
all, left Flesberg, Nmnedal, in May and arrived in 
Muskego in October. Here they stopped two or 
three weeks with Even Hegg, whose wife was a rela- 
tive of Mari Gulbrandsen. Some early settlers on 
Liberty Prairie (Koshkonong) took their baggage 
to Koshkonong while the immigrants walked. These 
facts are told me by Reverend K. A. Kasberg of 
Spring Grove, Minnesota, as related by his mother- 
in-law, Mrs. Halvor Kravik, who was in the party 
(she was Kristi Kristoffersen). She relates also 
that ''in the spring (hence 1843) she and her mother 
walked to Madison to get work. There was only one 
house on the whole road, that of an American family ; 
but their friendly 'come in, come in' (Norwegian 
kom ind, horn ind, but pronounced alike) was easily 
understood. Here we were well entertained over 
night." 

From Telemarken the following came : ^^^ Rich- 

155 The daughters Christine and Sigrid were born in 1842 and 
1844. 

156 Many of these located in the eastern and northern part of 
the settlement a year or two later. 



188 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ard Bjornson Rotkjon (born 1816), and brother As- 
lak (born 1826), from Vinje; Torstein Torsteinson 
Gaarden, from Tin; Ole Holjeson Yttreboe, with 
wife, Margit, and children, Johanne and Anne, and 
Halvor Hansen Dalstiel (Dalastol), from Hvideseid; 
Ole Torsteinson Aasnes, wife, Ingeborg, and daugh- 
ter, Hasge, from Vinje; Ole Gulliksen Barstad (born 
1791), wife, Ingeborg Jonsdatter (born 1799), and 
children, Vetle, Eivind, and Halvor, from Siljord; 
Ole Olson Haugan, from Siljord; Torbjorn Havre- 
dalen, wife, Lisa, and family, from Vinje ;^" and Gun- 
hild Saamundsdatter (born 1798), from Laurdal. 
Furthermore Guro Olsdatter (born 1821), from 
Nissedal, and Thomas Johnson Landeman (born 
1804), from Sandsvaerd; and Torbjorn Havredalen 
with wife, Lisa, and family, also came to Koshkonong 
that year. 

The great majority of these made the town of 
Christiana their first stopping place. So that, by 
the end of 1842, there were perhaps more immigrants 
found together within the area of that township than 
in any of the other settlements founded during the 
preceding years, 1839-1840. 

It was at this time that the question of a name 
for the new town was being mooted. Gunnul Vin- 
deig was given the privilege of naming it, and he 
decided for Christiania, adopting the name of the 
capital of Norway. The form as it came to stand, 

157 Who located in Town of Deerfield. Some of these, as Dalstiel, 
left Koshkoning a few years later. 



KOSHONONG SETTLEMENT 189 

however, would seem to be a typical instance of that 
slovenly habit of slurring syllables in foreign names, 
which so often appears in the records of American 
officials or clerks in land offices in those days. Yet 
the BUled-Magazin is authority for the statement 
that Gunnul Vindeig himself was the cause of the 
error, he, by mistake, writing Christiana instead of 
the correct Christiania. 

In the meantime new colonies are springing up 
elsewhere and the settlements previously established 
are growing and thriving. Before, therefore, trac- 
ing the further development on Koshkonong Prairie, 
it will be in order to note the advance in other lo- 
calities. 



CHAPTER XXI 

The First Norwegian Settlement in Iowa, at Sugar 
Creek, in Lee County 

The same year that records the genesis of the 
Koshkonong Settlement, also registers the founding 
of the earliest Norwegian colony in Iowa, that of 
Sugar Creek, in Lee County, in the southeastern 
part of the state. When Kleng Peerson was on his 
way to Missouri in 1837 (see above, page 117), it 
seems, that he passed through the southeastern cor- 
ner of Iowa ; he was, therefore, in all probability the 
first Norwegian to enter the State of Iowa. ^^^ Iowa 
had been organized as a territory in 1838. The set- 
tlers in Shelby County, Missouri, were dissatisfied, 
and, having heard of the natural resources of the 
Territory of Iowa, immediately to the north, and that 
good land with a near market ^^^ could be had in the 
southeastern part of the territory, they decided to 

158 Though not the first Scandinavian, for a Dane, Niels Christian 
Boye, came to Muscatine, Iowa, in 1837. In 1842 he located in 
Iowa City; a daughter, Julia Boye, the only surviving member of the 
family, lives now in Iowa City. 

159 One of the settlers in Shelby County, Missouri, was Peter 
Omundson Gjilje. As an illustration of the state of wilderness 
of the country around them it is related that Gjilje once walked for 
nine whole days in the forest tract before he found human habitation. 
One morning eariy he heard a cock crow, and then he found people. 
During these days he had lived on wild strawberries. These facts 
are related by Mr. B. L. Wick of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT IN IOWA 191 

move to Iowa. Going north into Lee County, Iowa, 
they located at a place six miles northwest of Keo- 
kuk, known as Sugar Creek. Andrew Simonsen and 
most of the settlers in Shelby County came at that 
time; but Peerson remained in Missouri. Here, 
however, they found a small colony of Norwegians 
who had, it seems, but recently established them- 
selves. With the exception of one to be mentioned 
below, it is not known who these earlier settlers 
were, and I have not been able to ascertain where 
they came from. 

Kleng Peerson has been accredited with being 
the founder also of the Sugar Creek Settlement, but 
there is no proof that he previously selected the site 
or even that he located there in 1840. Indeed the 
evidence goes rather to show that he never actually 
settled at Sugar Creek. His home in the following 
years was probably chiefly in Shelby County, Mis- 
souri ; in 1847 he sold his land there and joined the 
Swedish colony in Henry County, Illinois, which had 
been founded in 1846. Nor does it seem to me that 
Hans Barlien was a member of the Missouri colony, 
as Professor Anderson suggests. No mention of 
Barlien can be found in connection with the Shelby 
County colony or any other settlement. It seems 
more probable that he went to the Fox River Settle- 
ment when he came from Norway in 1837, but with 
a few others left in 1840, coming to Lee County some- 
what before the party that came with Andrew Si- 
monsen from Shelby County. They may originally 



192 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

have received their knowledge of this locality from 
Peerson. Barlien himself may have been in La Salle 
County when Peerson in 1837 returned from his 
journey to Missouri. It was, then, Barlien and a 
few immigrants with him whom Andrew Simonsen 
and others from Shelby County found already settled 
at Sugar Creek in the spring of 1840. If this is 
correct then the first Norwegian settler in Iowa and 
the real founder of the first Norwegian colony in 
the state is Hans Barlien, who was born at Over- 
halden in the province of Trondhjem about 1870. 

In 1838 Kleng Peerson went to Norway to gath- 
er recruits for the Shelby County colony; the fol- 
lowing year he brought back with him from Stavan- 
ger County the three brothers, Peter, William, and 
Hans Tesman, Nils Olson, Ole Reierson and family, 
and six or seven women, all of whom came to Mis- 
souri ; but several of these went to Lee County, Iowa, 
the following year. 

As far as known, the first settlers who came 
with Andrew Simonsen from Missouri were : Omund 
Olson, Knud Slogvig,i6° Jacob 0. Hetletvedt, Mrs; 
Thorstein T. Rue and her sons, Thorstein and John, 
Peter Omundson Gjilje, Erik Oie, Ole Oiesoen, and 
the three Tesman brothers; some of the rest seem 
to have followed later. Lars Tallakson settled 
there about the same time, but he came from Clark 
County, Missouri, where he had located in 1838. 

160 Jacob Slogvig was also among the first settlers; he had re- 
turned from Shelby County, Missouri, to La Salle County, in 1838, 
as also had Andrew Askeland. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT IN IOWA 193 

Gjermund Helgeson ^^^ was also among the earliest 
settlers, and Jacob Slogvig, who had gone back to La 
Salle County in 1838, likewise later located at Sugar 
Creek. Among the subsequent arrivals were Ole 
Soppeland, Hans William, C. Person, and Nils and 
Christ Nelson; these located there before 1846. 

The leading spirit in the colony was undoubtedly 
Hans Barlien. He was a man of great natural en- 
dowment, and he had a fair education. In Norway 
he had been a pronounced nationalist of the Werge- 
land direction and had taken part in the first peasant 
uprising. He was for a time a member of the Stor- 
thing (the national parliament). In religion he was 
a liberal, which aroused the hostility of the clergy, 
while his radical political views called forth the 
enmity of the official class. He owned a printing 
establishment at Overgaarden, and published a 
paper ^^^ in which he did not hesitate to give expres- 
sion to the principles for which he stood. This fre- 
quently involved him in litigation ; and, feeling him- 
self persecuted, he at last decided to emigrate to 
America in 1837. ^^^ Barlien seems to be the sec- 
ond Norwegian emigrant from Trondhjem. ^^'^ Lars 
Tallakson came from Bergen, while the rest of the 

161 Helgeson may have come with Barlien from Illinois. 

162 Melkeveieiij the Milky Way. 

163 See J. B. Wist, in Bygdejaevning, Madison, Wisconsin, 1903, 
p. 158; also First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, pp. 235-236, 
and Eepublikaneren, February 9, 1900. 

164 The first was Ole Eynning. See above, p. 107, and Normaend- 
ene i Amerika by Knud Langeland, pp. 26-29. 



194 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

colonists were mostly from the region of Stavanger. 

Lee County was but little settled at that time ; ^^^ 
land was bought of the Indians for a nominal price, 
but it often became expensive enough in the end, 
since it proved very difficult for many of the settlers 
to obtain a clear title from the United States. This 
is one reason why the settlement did not grow, 
though probably not the chief cause. In 1843 there 
were between thirty and forty families, writes John 
Reierson, ^^^ but in 1856 there were, according to the 
census of that year, only sixty-eight Norwegians in 
the county. This number had in 1885 decreased to 
thirty-one. In the fifties many of the settlers moved 
to other localities, but throughout the forties there 
was a prosperous colony that contributed not a little 
to the development of the community and the county 
in that early period. The settlement is of special 
interest in that it was the first Norwegian settle- 
ment in Iowa. Its founding inaugurated Norwegian 
colonization in the state which, particularly in the 
fifties, resulted in the establishment of a score of 
extensive settlements in the central and the northern 
counties. 

There are many reasons why the Sugar Creek 
Settlement did not grow as did the later settlements 
north and west. First of all, land was not of the 
best in Lee County. And then, the locality was rath- 
er too far south, Norwegians have everywhere in 

165 The first postoffice was established in Lee County in 1841. 

166 Veiviser for Emigranter, 1843. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT IN IOWA 195 

America thriven best in the more northeriy local- 
ities. Again, the tide of emigration from the vicin- 
ity of Stavanger was not sufficiently heavy to re- 
cruit the various settlements already established by 
immigrants from that region. The majority of those 
who came went direct to the Fox Eiver Settlement 
in Northern Illinois, which offered unsurpassed nat- 
ural advantages. To be sure, the Shelby County 
(Missouri) and the Lee County settlements might 
have been recruited from other districts in Norway. 
But it must be remembered that such other districts 
as had begun to take part in the emigration move- 
ment had their attention directed just at this time 
in another direction. The other provinces in ques- 
tion are Voss, Telemarken, and Numedal. It was 
representatives of these that founded the Wisconsin 
settlements in 1839-40, and in them the great major- 
ity of immigrants from those provinces located in 
the following decade. This is also true of those 
who came from Hardanger, Sogn, ^^^ and from West- 
ern Norway in general. 

There is still another reason why the colony did 
not grow. Beyond the common desire of material 
betterment, there was too little of community of in- 
terest. It is enough to mention that several differ- 
ent religious sects were represented in the little set- 
tlement, chief among which were the Quakers and 
the Latter Day Saints. Just across the Mississippi 

167 Immigration from Sogn was at first directed almost exclu- 
sively to Boone County, Illinois, and Dane County, Wisconsin. 



196 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

was the town of Nauvoo, ^^* which was a Mormon 
center at the time. When the Mormons who did 
not believe in polygamy established themselves at 
Lamoni some years later, many Norwegians of that 
belief went with them. ^^^ And not a few of the 
Quakers joined American Quaker settlements far- 
ther north, as in Salem, Henry County. ^^^ In the 
later fifties a prosperous colony was founded at and 
south of Legrand in Marshall County. A few of 
the early pioneers, however, remained and their de- 
scendants live in Lee County to-day. Finally, the 
diflSculty of securing a title to the land upon which 
many Norwegians had settled, to which reference 
has been made above, undoubtedly drove many to 
seek homes elsewhere. ^^^ 

Of these first Norwegian pioneers in Iowa I shall 
here add a brief final note, as we shall not meet with 
them again. We have met the brothers Knud and 
Jacob Anderson Slogvig four times as the founders 
of settlements — in Orleans County, New York, in 

168 In the Fox River Settlement in Illinoig many Norwegians 
joined the Mormons and later moved to Utah. Bishop Canute Peter- 
son was one of these. 

169 The Mormons first moved into Iowa in 1839, having received 
assurance of protection and the liberty to practice their belief from 
Governor Lucas in that year. They located in Lee County not far 
from Sugar Creek. The town of Nauvoo, Illinois, had been bought 
by them. The name was changed from Commerce. 

170 Omund Olson was converted to Quakerism at Salem, Henry 
County. As early as 1842 several of the settlers joined with him 
in erecting a meeting house on his farm. 

171 The question has been investigated somewhat by Mr. B. L. 
Wick. See Bepublikaneren, February 9, 1900. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT IN IOWA 197 

La Salle County, Illinois, in Shelby County, Mis- 
souri, and in Lee County, Iowa. Jacob Slogvig 
went to California about 1850; there he became 
wealthy and died in 1864. Knud Slogvig moved to 
Lee County early in the fifties, I believe, and died 
there. Hans Barlien died in the Sugar Creek Set- 
tlement in 1842. Mrs. Thorstein Rue and her son, 
Thorstein, lived in Sugar Creek till 1846, when they 
went to Wisconsin, and took part in the founding of 
the Blue Mounds Settlement in western Dane Coun- 
ty. Lars Tallakson settled about a decade later in 
La Salle County, Illinois, where he lived to a good 
old age. ^^2 Jacob Olson Hetletvedt (brother of the 
slooper, Ole 0. Hetletvedt) continued to live in Lee 
County till his death in August, 1857. His widow 
married Sven Kjylaa, with whom she then moved to 
the Fox River Settlement. Per Omundson Gjilje 
was one of the last to leave the settlement; in 1864 
he removed to New Sharon, Mahaska County, Iowa, 
where he died in 1895. His wife (born Karina Bor- 
nevik, from Naerstrand, Norway) died in 1902, aged 
eighty-six. 



172 He died about 1900. Among those who moved to New 
Sharon were Sjur Olson, Nils Nilson and Aad Nilson and wife 
Kriatina; Martha Erickson was until recently, at least, living in 
Clark County, Missouri. 



CHAPTER XXn 

The Earliest Norwegian Settlers at Wiota, La Fay- 
ette County, and Dodgeville, Iowa County, 
Wisconsin 

About forty miles directly west of Eock Prairie 
lies Wiota, about which town stretches in all direc- 
tions a Norwegian settlement of considerable size. 
It is separated from Luther Valley by Green Coun- 
ty and lies only twenty-five miles distant, north- 
west, from the old settlement of Rock Run, in Illi- 
nois. Here extensive lead mines were being oper- 
ated in the forties, and they were the means of 
drawing to that locality a large number of immi- 
grants of different nationalities, many of whom, to 
be sure, only remained there temporarily, going else- 
where to buy a home as soon as they had accumu- 
lated sufficient funds. The mines were at that time 
called ''Hamilton Diggings." As early as 1840 we 
find two Norwegians working in these mines, namely, 
the brothers Andreas and John 0. Week, both from 
Eidf jord, in Hardanger. The Week brothers seem 
to have been two of a party of about forty from 
Hardanger, who emigrated in 1839. ^" I do not 
believe, however, that either Andrew or John Week 
entered a land claim in the vicinity, and they re- 
mained there only a few years. In 1844 John Week 

173 They came in the same ship as Knut Eoe. 



EARLIEST NORWEGIAN SETTLERS 199 

moved to Dodgeville in Iowa County, where he es- 
tablished a shoe store in company with John Lee, 
from Nmnedal, Norway. Andrew Week went to 
Marathon County some years later; here he built a 
saw mill, which, however, was bought out by his 
brother John in 1849, when Andrew joined the Cal- 
ifornia gold-seekers. 

In the spring of 1842 Lars Davidson Eeque, an 
immigrant from Voss in the year 1839, came to 
Wiota. We have already met him as a purchaser of 
land in Deerfield Township, in Dane County, in De- 
cember, 1840. Not having the means to begin the 
improvement of his land, he says, he decided to go 
to Hamilton Diggings, and he did not take posses- 
sion of his land until the summer of 1842. ^^^ Rekve 
remained at the Diggings only about one year. In 
1841 the first permanent settlers arrived ; these were 
Per Unde, from Vik Parish, Sogn, Per Davidson 
Skjerveim, Sjur Ulven, and Ame Anderson Vinje, 
from Voss. The first of those was, it seems, the ear- 
liest emigrant from Sogn to America. He was a 
man of considerable means, but a copy of Rynning's 
Sandfaerdig Beretning om Amerika fell into 
his hands and he decided to emigrate. He 
remained in Chicago the first year and a half 
or over. Ulven and Skjerveim had come from 
Norway in 1840. Ame Vinje (bom 1820) came 
to Chicago in September, 1840, after having 
been five months on the journey. He had left 



174 He did not actually settle there permanently before 1844. 



200 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Norway April sixteenth with his wife, ^''^ and 
a party of twenty other persons from Voss. The 
following spring Vinje and Skjerveim, having de- 
cided to go to the mines in Wisconsin, secured each 
their yoke of oxen, and drove overland, arriving at 
Wiota on the seventh of July, after five days of diffi- 
cult travel ; Unde and Ulven came at the same time. 
Unde immediately entered a claim on a piece of land 
in the vicinity and built a house, as did Skjerveim 
and Vinje a short time after; these located, how- 
ever, about three miles farther south. 

According to Arne Vinje the following twenty- 
one persons came from Voss that spring : Torstein 
Saue, his wife and son Gulleik, Lars Saue and wife, 
Klaus Grimestad and wife, Arne Anderson and wife 
and infant son Andrew, Knudt Hylle, Ole S. Gilder- 
hus, Knudt Rokne, Mads Sonve, Baar Lawson Boe 
(a brother of Iver Lawson), Lars Rothe, Brynnel 
Ronve, two young ladies from Saue, one from Ronve 
and one from Gilderhus. In discussing the voyage 
Vinje says: 

The bottom of the ship in which we sailed was de- 
clared by Capt. Ankerson to be one hundred and fifty 
years old and when, in midocean, we encountered a se- 
vere storm, the timbers sustaining the upper berths gave 
way, precipitating them upon the lower ones, and the 
screams and cries of the frightened passengers added to 
the fury of the storm, almost created a panic on board. 
As for myself, I seized a heavy chest which I intended 
throwing overboard to use as a support in the water in 

175 Her maiden name was Martha GuUiksdatter Kindem. 



EARLIEST NORWEGIAN SETTLERS 201 

case the ship foundered. Even Hegg, and others from 
"Ostlandet," who came from Drammen with Capt. An- 
kerson, stopped in Milwaukee, while we from Voss came 
on to Chicago, where my wife and I were received into 
the home of Sjur Ulven and family. Mrs. Ulven being 
my wife's cousin. 

Knudt Hylle and myself began our first work in 
Chicago upon the streets of the (then) westside. My 
work was handling a heavy plank scraper, drawn by a 
yoke of oxen and used to scrape the sod from the sides 
of the road into the center. 

At this time occurred the election of General Harri- 
son to the Presidency. The candidate was the "People's 
choice" and I, from my bed, saw a log cabin, such as he 
lived in, mounted upon wheels and drawn through the 
streets to show that he was chosen from the common peo- 
ple. That was effective electioneering! 

In the spring of 1841 Peder Skjerveim, who 
had come from Norway in 1837, having lived in Chi- 
cago in the interval, drove from Chicago up to Ham- 
ilton Diggings to explore the region. Upon his re- 
turn he reported that there was government land for 
sale there, and Vinje and he decided to move thither. 
Peder Iverson Unde and family and Sjur Ulven 
went to the "Diggings" at the same time. Of this 
Vinje writes : 

We left Chicago on July 2nd and arrived in Wiota, 
or Hamilton's Diggings as it was then called, after a tire- 
some journey of five days. On July 7th we passed Elgin, 
Illinois, in a grove near which Independence day was 
being celebrated, on July 4th, but there was then no 
town, only a few scattered houses. We progressed with 



202 NORWEGIAN BDnGRATION 

some diOficiilty as our -vragon broke down twice during 
the journey. The second of these accidents occurred as 
we were nearing Rockford toward evening, when the axle 
gave wav; but Peder Skjervheim.with only an ax and an 
augur went into the woods nearby, and from a conven- 
ient tree cut and made a new axle that night, so that we 
proceeded safely on our way the next morning. 

There being no bridges, we forded the rivers at 
Rockford and Freeport. There was then not a house 
where the thriving city of Rockford now stands and only 
one small grocery store at Freeport. There were, at that 
time, no Norwegians in or around "Wiota. and the nearest 
Norwegian settlement was at Rock Run, Illinois. Peder 
Skjervheim and I. each bought forty acres of government 
land in the Township of Wiota. upon which we each built 
a log cabin and began other improvements. Andres 
Brgekke also bought forty acres but soon sold it again. 

In 1842 there came to our neighborhood three young 
pec>ple from Voss: David Larson Fenne and wife, and his 
brother, Nils Fenne. In 1S43 there came some families 
from Vik. in Sogn. and settled near by : Ole Iverson Unde 
and wife Britha, and his brother Erik's family. Erik 
died before reaching America, but his wife and children 
settled down here. Likewise, Erik Engebrit Hove, Ole 
Anderson and Sjur Tallakson Bruavold came at the same 
time. 

To those which Mr. Vinje mentions as arriving 
in 1842 may be added Isak Johnson from Skien, ^^^ 
and Giristian Hendriokson from Lier. Norway, The 
latter however moved to Primrose Township in Dane 
Comity in 1846. (See below). 



176 I am told that he eame in 1841, but this seems to be a mistake. 



EARLIEST NORWEGIAN SETTLERS 203 

Mathias J. Engebretsen of Gratiot, Wisconsin, 
tells me that Per Fenne and wife Martha came to 
Wiota in 1842, while Nils Sunve and wife Maline, and 
Ivar Fenne came in 1843 ; all these were from Voss. 
Helge Meland and wife from Telemarken came in 
1843, as also Tore Thompson from Tindal and Ash- 
ley Gunderson from Numedal. ^^^ Those mentioned 
by Ame Vinje at the end of the above account, Ole 
and Sjur Bmavolden, did not settle at Wiota, it 
seems, before 1845, and Erik E. Hove not until 1847. 
These had located first at Long Prairie in Boone 
County, Illinois, as had also Ingebrigt Fuglegjaerdet, 
who came from Vik, Sogn, in 1844. Of the immigra- 
tion from Land, Norway, to Wiota, which began with 
Syver Johnson (Smed or Smedhogen in 1844), I shall 
speak in the next chapter. The growth of the Jeffer- 
son Prairie Settlement will, however, claim our at- 
tention briefly first. 



l77Eeverend J. W. C. Dietrichson, speaking of the Wiota Settle- 
ment in 1844 Bays, that there had been organized a congregation that 
year, which numbered about one hundred members, of whom the larg- 
er part were from Voss; these, he says, had settled there for the 
most part in 1843. He mentions Per Davidson as deacon and a 
leading member of the church, and Knud Knudson as one who by 
great energy had acquired considerable wealth. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Growth of the Jefferson Prairie Settlement from 

1841 to 1845. The First Norwegian Land 

Owners in Rock County. 

In an earlier chapter I have given an account of 
the coming of Norwegians to Jefferson Prairie in 
1838-39. We found that a considerable number of 
persons had located there by 1840, principally immi- 
grants from Numedal. These first settlers located 
in the southern half of Clinton Township, but others 
soon came who settled still farther south, so that the 
settlement soon came to include a portion of the 
Township of Manchester in Boone County, Illinois. 
The first settlers here were Tonnes Tolleivson (or 
Tollef son) from Jaederen, and Svend Larson, both of 
whom settled in Boone County in 1840 ; Tollef son had 
come to America in the fall of 1839, presumably 
spending the winter of 1839-40 on Jefferson Prairie. 

The settlement thus came to be divided into a 
northern and a southern part, the immigrant settlers 
in the two representing different provinces in Nor- 
way. The Numedalians settled as we have seen, 
nearer Clinton and in general in the northern end of 
Jefferson Prairie ; in fact they occupied most of the 
prairie proper. The southern portion, the timber 
land, come to be settled principally by immigrants 
from Voss. Very few of these located in the Town of 



JEFFERSON PRAIRIE SETTLEMENT 205 

Clinton; they selected homes in the early days, for 
the most part, just where their descendants now live, 
on the south side of the state line, in Illinois. The 
whole settlement extends from about a mile and a 
half south of Clinton across the prairie and into the 
timber which began about three miles south of Clin- 
ton and extends about four miles down into Illinois. 

We have observed above that Ole Nattestad's 
house became the stopping place of the earliest im- 
migrants to Jefferson Prairie. In a similar way 
D. B. Egery's place, ^^^ located four miles southwest 
of the Nattestad cabin on the trail to Beloit, became 
the headquarters for many a Norwegian immigrant 
in that early day. Speaking of him, H. L. Skavlem 
gives testimony to his kindness and the readiness 
with which he lent a helping hand to the incoming 
settlers in his vicinity, who were seeking a place to 
establish a home in the wilderness. As soon as the 
immigrants arrived, parties of two or three would 
fill their knapsacks (skrseppe) with provisions and 
strike out in various directions to ''spy out the 
land." 179 

The first Norwegians to buy land on Jefferson 
Prairie were Ansten Nattestad and Thorstein Nil- 
sen, the date of whose purchase is December 25th, 
1839. 180 On January 25, 1840, Anders Jacobson's 

178 Situated in section 26 in Turtle Township. 

179 H. L. Skavlem in Scandinavians in the Early Days of Bock 
County, a most interesting and valuable pamphlet, though very brief. 

180 The first Norwegian land owner in the county was however 
Gisle Sebjornson Halland as shown by H. L. Skavlem 's researches. 
The date of Halland 's purchase was November 29th. 



206 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

purchase was recorded, and further in the same 
year those of Erik Gudbrandson (May 16) and 
Kittil Newhouse (Nyhus, June 15). The first three 
purchases were in sections 32, 30 and 22, respective- 
ly, while those of Gudbrandson and Newhouse were 
in section 20, all in Clinton Township. The latter 
made a further purchase in 1842 in the same sec- 
tion, as did also Tosten Olson. Ole Nattestad's 
purchase was recorded on November 25, 1842, while 
in September of that year Ole Newhouse (Nyhus) 
had bought three forties in sections 15 and 22, and 
Christolifer Newhouse one in section 30 ; others were 
now rapidly moving in and becoming owners of their 
choice of land on the ' ' Prairie. ' ' Among these were 
Jas. Hilbeitson, Erik Hilbeitson, Tore Helgeson, 
Erik Gulbeitson, Gulbrand Gulbrandson, and Ole 
Pederson Bogstrandeiet, all in the fall of 1842. 

In this connection it may be noted that Gulleik 
Gravdal's purchase of land in the Town of Newark 
(in section 1) was recorded December 12, 1839, and 
he made additions to his holdings in 1842 in sec- 
tions 1 and 9. Mrs. Gunnild Odegaarden purchased 
land in 1839 and 1840, Lars H. Skavlem in June, 
1841, and Gudbrand Olson and Mrs. Gulleik 
Springen in October, 1841. During September of 
the latter year four purchases were also recorded 
in Plymouth Township, namely those of Paul Hal- 
vorson Skavlem, Nils Olson Vegli (Wagley) and 
Gunnel Holgerson, while in May, 1840, Gulleik H. 



JEFFERSON PRAIRIE SETTLEMENT 207 

Blakestad Skavlem had become the owner of forty- 
acres in Beloit Township. ^^^ 

The Jefferson Prairie Settlement received con- 
siderable accessions during the next four years. 
Lena Sondal came in 1841, Haakon Paulson from 
Sigdal and his wife Inger came in 1842, Ole Severt- 
son and family from Numedal, including a daugh- 
ter, Petra, who is now Mrs. Henry Jacobson (Oppe- 
dal) ^^- of Clinton, came in 1843, as did also Brynild 
L. Lie and wife from Voss, Lars 0. Lie from Hal- 
lingdal ^^^ and Edwin 0. Wilson Naeshaug. The last 
of these settled in Boone County, Illinois, where he 
bought land in 1846, but removed to Filmore County, 
Minnesota, in 1854. Gunder Vedfald and family, 
including the sons, Ole and Halvor, from Telemarken 
also came in 1843. In the year 1844 there was a 
considerable influx of settlers from Voss ; ^^'^ among 
them were : Sjur K. Kvarma wife and four children 
from Voss, Brynild Dugstad, ^^^ wife and five child- 
ren, Erik K. Dugstad, wife and child, Lewis 
Severts, Ole Shipley and wife Guri, Lars Grane, 

181 In December, 1842, Mrs. Gisle Halland bought forty acres in 
Beloit Township. Her name appears as Margarett Nutes (Margrit 
Knutsdatter). 

182 Henry Jacobson is a son of Jacob J. Oppedal, who came 
from Hardanger in 1850. 

183 Frederik Frederikson 's wife, who was Martha Larson, also 
came in 1843. Frederikson came some years later. 

184 We have seen that Clas Isakson had immigrated from Voss 
in 1840. He was the first Vossing to settle on Jefferson Prairie. 

185 Brynild Dugstad located in the northern part of the settle- 
ment. A son, Knut B. Dugstad, died at CUnton, Wis., in April, 
1905, age 80. 



208 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Sjur Grane, Elling Ellingson and wife Magela, 
Ole Skutle, ^^^ Peder Bere and wife Britha. Al- 
so the following came about the same time (1844 or 
the following year) : Lars Baarson and wife Gudve, 
Guru Isakson, Sjur A. Gronlien, wife and two chil- 
dren, and Erik E. Slagen. Nearly all those here 
enumerated followed the lead of Clas Isakson and 
settled near or south of the state line. From Vik, 
Sogn, Norway, there was a single settler, namely, 
Ole 0. Train. From Hardanger also there was, it 
seems, only one immigrant among those who came 
during this earliest period, Anna Tollefson, wife of 
Tonnes Tollefson, who, as we have seen, came to 
America in 1839. From Telemarken there were 
about twelve persons, among them Steinar E. Had- 
land, wife and son, Guldmond; Gunder 0. Vedfald, 
wife and daughter ; Even Haatvedt and Ole A. Haa- 
tvedt and wife, besides the Vedfald family spoken of 
above. From Naes in Hallingdal we find Knud E. 
Vaeterud, a widower, and his two daughters, Inge- 
borg and Ronnau, besides Lars 0. Lie, and from 
Modum, Thov Modum and wife Karen; finally 
Krodsherred is represented by Even Fingerson Fos- 
lien. 

Among the earliest purchasers of land (1842) 
I have mentioned Ole C. Newhouse. He was a 
brother of Kristoffer and Kittil Newhouse who had 
come in 1839. The original name, Nyhus, was in 
the early days changed to Newhouse, which is a 

186 Ole Skutle later married Lena Sondal, who had come in 1841; 
see above. 



JEFFERSON PRAIRIE SETTLEMENT 209 

translation of the Norwegian. Ole Newhouse mar- 
ried Helen Stabaek, daughter of Klemet Stabaek, who 
has been spoken of as the founder of the Rock Run 
Settlement in Stephenson County, Illinois, in 1839. 

Sjur Kvarme's children included a son, Kolbein 
(bom 1831) ; he lived on Jefferson Prairie from 1844- 
1854, in which latter year he joined the gold-seekers 
in California. With the proceeds of three years* 
work in the gold mines he came east again in 1857 
and bought a farm near St. Ansgar, Iowa, where he 
lived till his death in October, 1906. Olav Vedfald, 
son of Gunder Vedfald, remained with his parents 
on Jefferson Prairie till 1850, when he purchased 
land and settled on Bonnet Prairie in Columbia 
County, "Wisconsin. *^^ 

Among the pioneers of Jefferson Prairie are 
also particularly to be named Reverend 0. Andrew- 
son and wife, Ragnild Paulson, both of whom came 
to America in 1841, but did not settle in Clinton 
Township before 1855 ; in that year Rev. Andrewson 
accepted a call as pastor of the congregation which 
he had organized there in 1850. Mrs. Andrewson, 
who is now eighty-five years old, is still living there. 

In the above survey of the growth of the Jeffer- 
son Prairie Settlement during these years many 
names have been omitted because of the uncertainty 
among my informants as to the year of their arrival. 

187 Of those who come in 1844 from Numedal were Gulleik Svens- 
rud and family, who however removed to Blue Mounds, Dane County, 
in 1847. In 1860 he married Ingeborg Lohn who died in 1903 ; there 
are five living children. 



210 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

In a subsequent chapter I shall also outline the sub- 
sequent growth of the settlement. I shall here mere- 
ly note the fact that Reverend J. W. C. Dietrichson 
speaks of the congregation in 1844 as numbering 150 
members. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Immigration to Rock Prairie from Numedal and 
Land in 1842 and Subsequent Years. 

In Chapter XI above we have given an account 
of the beginnings of the Rock Prairie Settlement and 
traced its growth down to 1842. We shall here brief- 
ly discuss the development of this settlement during 
the next eight years. Already in the summer of 
1842 a considerable number of immigrants came, 
most of them locating there permanently. I shall 
mention first Halvor N. Aaen and wife, Guri 
(Frogne), both from Nore in Numedal, who settled 
in Newark. ^^^ Halvor Stordok and Ole Stordok, 
brothers of Gunnul Stordok mentioned before, both 
came in 1842. Halvor bought land near Sugar 
River Bottom; he married Ingeborg Paulson, and 
the couple lived on the homestead till their death. 
Their children, Knud, Halvor, Inge and Ingeborg, 
all unmarried, are still living there. They are all 
over fifty years of age now. Ole Stordok, who mar- 
ried Anne Sand from Rollaug, located at Sand 
Prairie, five miles south of Broadhead. In the same 
year came also Gullik O. Mygstue, with wife Joran 

188 Aaen is said to have been something of an inventor. He 
made two clocks, one of which was bought by Mr. Chrispinson; the 
other was bought by Simon Strand, and is now probably in the pos- 
session of Stone or Gunild Strand says a writer in Amerika for March 
15th, 1907. Aaen died about 1886. 



212 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

and five children, from Vaegli, Numedal. Gullik died 
in 1852, but the widow lived till 1887. Their oldest 
son, Ole (born in 1825), had learned the trade of a 
shoemaker and conducted a shoemaker's shop on his 
farm long after he had begun farming. ^^^ In 1848 
he married Sive Espeset from Hallingdal, Norway; 
they had no children. ^^^ 

Among those who came from Numedal to Amer- 
ica in 1842 was also Herbrand H. Berge (bom in 
Rollaug in 1821. He remained for a year and a 
half on Jefferson Prairie, however, so that he did 
not locate on Rock Prairie until early in 1844. Anna 
Torbjomsdatter, who later became his wife (1847) 
also immigrated in 1842. They removed to Jackson 
County, Minnesota, in 1876 ; he died there in Decem- 
ber, 1903, and she in February, 1904, ^^^ at the age 
of seventy- seven. In 1843 Hellik Olson Holtan with 
family from Flesberg in Numedal emigrated and 
settled on Rock Prairie. Holtan was a man of much 
intelligence and strength of character, who soon came 
to hold a leading place among the pioneers in the 
community. 



189 The location of his farm is half a mile from Orfordville. 

190 Mrs. Mygstue died in 1892. Ole Mygstue then sold his farm 
and moved to his sister, Mrs. Engen, in Primrose, Dane County. An 
obituary notice of Ole Mygstue (who died in 1902) speaks very highly 
of him as a member of the church and a citizen. He was a man of 
kindly nature and helpful spirit in whom all reposed implicit confi- 
dence. 

191 Their children are: Paul Berge, Herbrand Berge and Mrs. 
Henry Anderson, all living in Jackson, Minnesota. 



IMMIGRATION TO ROCK PRAIRIE 213 

So far we have spoken only of immigrants from 
Nmnedal. In the year 1842 the first family from 
Land, Norway, came to Rock Prairie, namely Hans 
Smedsrud and wife. We have seen that the first 
immigrant from Land, Lars Roste, who came in 1839, 
located at Rock Run. It was the year 1843 which 
inaugurated the tide of emigration to America from 
Land and nearly all the earliest arrivals located on 
Rock Prairie. Thus in that year came Harald Om- 
melstad and family, five in all, Anders Lundsaeter and 
family, in all five, Peder H. Gaarder with family 
(six), Soren Sorum, and Anne Marie Nilsdatter, in 
all eighteen persons. These were followed the next 
year by fifteen persons, namely : Lars Nord-Fossum 
and family (five), Hans Christofferson Tollefsrude 
and wife, Anders Midboen with wife and one child, 
Anders Engen, Gudbrand Gaarder, Helene Gaarder, 
Inger Gaarder, and Helene Klevmoen. Anders Er- 
stad and wife, and Syver Smed, who came at the 
same time, did not locate on Rock Prairie ; the former 
went to Rock Run while Smed located at Wiota, be- 
ing the first native of Land to settle in La Fayette 
County. 

I shall also add here the names of those who 
came from Land in the following years. In 1845 came 
two families, namely Askild Ullensager, wife and 
four children, and Tarald Jorandlien, wife and four 
children. Jorandlien or Jorlien, as the name is usu- 
ally rendered, located in Newark. In 1846 Marie 
Engen and her son, Hans (born 1823) and daughter, 
came, as did also Erik Nederhaugen. The year 1847 



214 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

brought Ole Norstelien, Christine Norstelien and 
Hans Sveum, wife and five children. ^^^ The year 
1848 with its extensive immigration also brought an 
increased contingent from Land. The following 
settled on Rock Prairie ; Ole Gaarder and wife, An- 
dreas Sorum, Ingebrigt Fossum and family (six), 
Halvor Ruud and family (seven), Johans Neder- 
haugen ''•' and family (four), Johan Frankrige and 
family (five) and Hovel Jensvold, ^^'^ Hovel Smeby 
and Bertha Lybaek. ^^^ In all there were fifty-four 
who came from Land in 1848 ; of these, twenty-eight 
settled on Rock Prairie, twenty-five at Wiota and one 
at Rock Run. The roster of immigrants from Land 
in 1849 includes forty-eight persons, of whom sixteen 
located on Rock Prairie ; they were : Johannes Om- 
melstadsaeteren, Ingeborg Ommelstadssteren, Mar- 
thea Brendingen, Johans Lybaek, Bertha Froslie, 
Marit Froslie, Hans Engen (Froslieit) and family 
(five) and Jonas Gjerdet and family (five). Syver 
Gaarder and family, thirteen in all, who located far- 
ther west at Albany, Green County, came directly 
from Land, but they were natives of Valders. He 
had moved from Valders to Torpen in Land and 
bought there the Gaarder farm when the Gaarder 
family emigrated in 1843, remaining there, however, 

192 Svend Norstelien and family (seven) and Kari Lillebsek and 
six children from Land, who also came that year, settled in Wiota. 

193 Martin Johnson of Orfordville, Kock County, is his son. 

194 Christian Lunde, who also came from Land in 1848, located 
at Rock Run. Several families went to Wiota; see above, Chapter 
XXII. 

195 Who later married Syver Midboen. 



IMMIGRATION TO ROCK PRAIRIE 215 

as we have seen, only six years. ^^^ The accessions 
for 1850 were: Ole Smeby and family (five), Osten 
Lundsasteren and family (five), Sjugal Frankrige 
and family (six), Helene Froslie, Bertha Sorum, 
Hovel Fossum, Ole Hovdelien and Hans Vaerhaug, 
in all twenty-one. 

The account of immigration from Land which it 
has been possible to give so fully here is based on 
the private records of Hans C. Tollefsrude, as pub- 
lished in part in Amerika for March 8th, 1907. Hans 
Tollefsrude 's name occupies a foremost place in the 
early history of the Rock Prairie Settlement. In the 
seventies he again became a pioneer, locating now in 
Pocahontas County, Iowa. ^^"^ 



196 Of the remaining twenty-three of this year 's immigration 
from Land eleven went to Wiota, seven to Rock Run, and five scat- 

I tered elsewhere. 

197 The limitations of space forbid a sketch of Mr. Tollefsrude 
in our survey of Rock Prairie. 



CHAPTER XXV 

Immigration from Hallingdal, Norway, to Rock 
Prairie from 1843 to 1848. Continued Im- 
migration from Numedal. Other 
Early Accessions. 

We will now turn to another contingent in the 
early immigration to Rock Prairie, — that from the 
dialect district of Hallingdal. The emigration from 
this region began in 1842 with the departure of the 
brothers Knud and John Ellingson Solem, who came 
direct to Rock Prairie. In 1843 Kleofas Halvorson 
Hansemoen inamigrated with wife Kari (Onsgaard) 
and child Halvor, locating on section twelve in New- 
ark Township, Rock County. ^^^ Kleofas 's father's 
name was Halvor Kleof asen Hansemoen ; he did not 
emigrate. There were two other brothers, Erik and 
Hans, of whom the former did not come to this coun- 
try. Hans Hansemoen had in Norway bought an 
estate called Husemoen, not intending to emigrate. 
But when his brother sent favorable reports back 
from America, he sold out and came to this country 
in the fall of 1845. He bought land in sections 
eleven and twelve in Newark Township, near his 
brother. The above is narrated in part to show how 

198 They had five children in this country: Knud, Kleofas, 
Eyvind, Eirik and Caroline, all now married and with families. The 
sons adopted Cleofas as the family name. The daughter was married 
to Kittil Haugen, now living in Pelican Bapids, Minn, 



IMMIGRATION TO ROCK PRAIRIE 217 

his name happens to appear as Hans Husemoen, 
while the brother is Kleofas Hansemoen and the 
brother's children are Halvor Kleofas, Knud Kleo- 
fas, etc. (see note 198). Hans Husemoen's wife's 
maiden name was Bergit Halvorsdatter Tveto; she 
was from Aal Parish in Hallingdal. 

In 1845 the settlement received other accessions 
from Hallingdal. The list includes : Ola Brunsvold, 
Halvor Hesgard, Kristen Grimsgaard, Ole Skaalen, 
Nils Roe, Ola Sando, Mikkel Rust, Svend Hesla, 
Gjermund Maehtum, Aslak Rustad and Aslak Ulsak. 

In 1846 about three hundred persons emigrated 
from Hallingdal. How many of these came to Rock 
County I am not able to say ; among them were, how- 
ever, Erik Kolsrud and family, Ole Hei and family. 
Nils Haugen, wife and six children, Knud Trostem, 
Henrik Henriksen Trostem, Halvor Ness, Hans En- 
gen, Kari Husemoen, Guttorm Roen and son, Ole, 
Tollef Tollefsrud-Ballandby and sons Nils, Ola and 
Amund, Henrik Rime, brother of Tollef, A. T. Beigo, 
Timan Burtness and his brother John, Aadne Engen, 
Kristen Megaarden, Lars Grimsgaard, wife and 
family, Ingeborg Olsdatter Trostem, Asle Hesla, 
and Asle Brunsvold. Many of the above had 
families. The leaders of this party were the 
three first named and Tollef Tollefsrude. They 
were the owners of large estates in Norway 
which they sold when they left for America. 
They paid the passage for many who came from 
Hallingdal that summer, but I cannot give the 
names of these. The party of emigrants left Dram- 



218 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

men in April by the ship Newmann, which took them 
to Havre, France. Here they remained one month, 
before the ship on which they were to sail was gotten 
ready. They did not arrive to Rock Prairie until 
October, having been six months en route. 

In 1847 very few came from Hallingdal, among 
them are mentioned Ole Onsgaard, Nils 0. Wikko, ^^' 
and Osten Burtness. In the following year, how- 
ever, there was a considerable immigration. Erik 
K. Berg and his brother Truls Berg, Ole Trulson Ve 
and Ole Gulsen (Trostem) with wife and son Gul 
and daughter Guri, Erik Ovestrud, Tideman 
Kvarve, Guttorm Megaarden, a Mr. Sagdalen and 
wife, Kari, ^°° Levor Kvarve and family of twelve, 
and Knut Guttormsen Tyrebakken. ^^^ There came 
others from Hallingdal also in the years following. 
I may mention here Ole J. Bakke and wife and Her- 
brand K. Finseth (born in Hemsedal in July, 1830), 
who emigrated in 1852 and lived three years on Rock 
Prairie. They moved to Goodhue County, Minne- 
sota, in 1855, as did also Knut K. Finseth and A. K. 
Finseth, brothers of Herbrand; these together with 
Halvor Hesgard, Aadne Engen and Christen Even- 
son, who removed to Minnesota at the same time. 



199 Nils O. Wikko waa from Gol, Hallingdal. He married Beret 
Halvorson in 1854, and removed soon after to Worth County, Iowa. 
He died in 1904, at the age of eighty-three, survived by widow and 
six daughters. 

200 They moved to Houston County, Minnesota, in 1853. He 
died in 1894 and she in 1904, at the age of eighty-four. 

201 Tyrebakken moved to Black Hammer, Minnesota, in 1854, when 
he married Mari Haugejordet. He was born in 1823, in 1905. 



IMMIGRATION TO ROCK PRAIRIE 219 

were the first white settlers in the Town of Holden, 
Goodhue County. ^°^ I may also mention Kittel 0. 
Euud, bom 1823 of parents Erik Sanderson and Mar- 
git Euud, and who came to Rock County in 1850. A 
few years later he moved to Northwestern Iowa and 
in 1855 became a pioneer settler in Holdon, Goodhue 
County, Minnesota, where he married Margrethe An- 
dersdatter Flom in 1856. She was born in Aurland, 
Sogn, 1824. She died in March and he in April, 
1903. 203 

The immigrants from Hallingdal settled chiefly 
in Spring Valley, and Plymouth ; Beloit and Newark 
townships were settled for the most part before the 
Hallingdal immigrants began to come in larger num- 
bers, yet some are located in Beloit Township. New- 
ark is occupied largely by immigrants from Numedal, 
as is also Beloit. While Rock Prairie was taken 
possession of chiefly by pioneers from Numedal, 
Land, and Hallingdal, there were also a few from 
Telemarken, Sigdal and Ringerike, and one from 
Valders among the pioneers of the forties. Of those 
who came from Telemarken I shall mention Knut 
Simon (born 1819), who located near Janesville in 
1843. He removed to Rice County, Minnesota, in 
1854, and thence to Pope County in 1865; died in 
1905. 

The single immigrant from Valders to locate on 

202 Knut Finseth died in 1869. Herbrand Finseth married Guri 
Ouri in 1867 ; he died in .January, 1901, leaving wife and six children. 

203 I gather these facts from an obituary notice, which speaks at 
length in eloquent terms of the noble lives of this couple. 



220 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Rock Prairie was Guul Guttormson. He came in 
1843 and is the first known American immigrant 
from that district. He was born at Ildjernstadhaug 
in Hedalen in 1816. Abont 1840 he had removed to 
Modmn; here a copy of Nattestad's journal fell into 
his hands and he and Hans Uhlen and Anders 
Aamodt ^^'^ decided to emigrate. These three came 
on the same ship that brought Kleofas Halvorson 
and Peder Gaarder. Guttormson bought land half 
way between Orfordville and Broadhead. He was 
always called '^Guul Valdris" for he was and re- 
mained the only ' ' Valdris ' ' ^°^ there, for while he 
wrote home urging his friends in Valders to come to 
America, the immigration from Valders did not set 
in before 1847-48 and by that time Rock Prairie had 
been, as we have seen, taken up largely by immi- 
grants from Hallingdal and Land. Guul Guttorm- 
son 's oldest son, Guttorm Guul (Broadhead, Wis- 
consin), born August, 1848, was probably the first 
child born of Valdris parentage in America. I have 
already spoken of the emigration of Syver Gaard- 
gj. 206 ^ '^ Valdris" who came with the party from 
Land in 1849. They located at Albany in Green 
County. These I believe were the only settlers from 
Valders in this locality. 

204 These two were the first to emigrate to America from Modimi. 

205 Valdris is the Norwegian appellation of a native of Valders. 

206 Syver Gaarder 's daughter, Barbro, married Martin Johnson 
(Nederhaugen) in 1855. Dr. J. S. Johnson, of Minneapolis, is their 
oldest son; other children are: Ben Johnson, Orfordville, Wisconsin; 
Mrs. Eev. Langseth, Glendorado, Minn.; Mrs. Eev. L. Njus, Mcintosh, 
Minn.; Mrs. Stromaeth, living on the homestead; Mandy Johnson. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

Economic Conditions of Immigrants. Cost of Pass- 
age. Course of the Journey. Dura- 
tion of the Journey. 

In discussing the causes of emigration, we have 
found that economic factors entered extensively into 
operation. It was the desire for material better- 
ment that prompted a very large proportion of Nor- 
wegian emigrants to leave the land of their fathers. 
The first five decades of Norwegian emigration was 
a period in which the battle for existence among the 
Norwegian peasant and the common man was none 
too easy. Unfavorable economic conditions, the op- 
pressive methods of the larger land owners, frequent 
crop failure, often reduced the lesser farmers into 
a condition of impoverishment. Even wealthy fam- 
ilies found themselves burdened by debts from which 
the future seemed to offer little hope of relief. By 
the law of primogeniture the oldest son inherited the 
estate. The sons of men of means, therefore, were 
financially often no better situated than the cotter's 
son, and were often forced to seek their fortune be- 
yond the native village or district. These consid- 
erations will make clear first that the great majority 
of Norwegian emigrants to the United States were 
at the time of emigration of small means ; they were 
often very poor indeed. Their wealth lay in 



222 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

the ability and the will to carve their way in a land 
of greater promise. Their wealth lay also in their 
thrift, in their ideals, and the moral fiber of their 
race. Many of those who have succeeded best in 
their adopted country came here well-nigh penniless. 
To them poverty was no longer a curse when the 
path of opportunity lay before them. But the above 
considerations will also have indicated that Norwe- 
gian immigrants of that early period were not al- 
ways of the poor classes even though they came here 
with little or nothing. Later Norwegian immigra- 
tion has, it is true, generally been from among the 
impecunious. But in that early period, especially 
1835 to 1865, a very large number of the immigrants 
came from families which general or special condi- 
tions had suddenly so reduced to conditions which 
became to them intolerable. And it was the hope 
which America held out which inspired them with the 
will to seek there the independence now no longer 
theirs. We have already met with the evidence of 
this in such families as Hovland (1835), Nattestad 
(1837), Aadland (1837), Aasland (1838), Gravdal 
(1839), StabjBk (1839), Gitle Danielson (1839), 
Luraas (1839), Unde (1839), Heg (1840), Gaarder 
(1843-49), Nils Haugen (1846), and many others. 
We shall in the following pages meet with families 
of considerable means from Numedal, Telemarken, 
Voss, Ringsaker and elsewhere, of whom the same 
is true ; and among the pioneers who came from Sogn 
in 1844, 1845, and later there were many old fam- 
ilies of property and prominence in their native 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 223 

community. I stress this fact because some who 
have formerly written about Norwegian settlements 
in this country have never yet fully recognized the 
full significance of this ; but I speak of it here espec- 
ially because I have myself also failed to fully ap- 
preciate this fact when last I wrote upon the subject. 
What has been said here applies to the founders of 
the settlements of Northern Illinois, of Racine, Rock, 
Dane and other counties in Southern Wisconsin, and 
many of those who some years later established the 
settlements in Northern Iowa and Southern Min- 
nesota. On the other hand also some of those who 
later became most substantial members of these set- 
tlements were men whose transportation to America 
was paid for by others that they might come and 
get a start in life. These men emigrated prompted 
by the desire of material betterment and in that aim 
they have succeeded, and they have succeeded hon- 
estly, often accumulating great wealth. ^^^ 

The second topic in the title of this chapter is 
the cost of passage. I shall discuss this item briefly, 
using concrete illustrations from our sources. In 
that early period the voj^age was made by sail-ships. 
These continued to be used for a long time after 
steam had come into use, clear down into the seven- 
ties. The ticket was then generally somewhat 
cheaper by sailing vessels than by steamship. 
Passengers furnished their own board and bed- 
ing, and they were required to bring a supply 

207 It is only ' ' financial prosperity ' ' which we are here speaking 
of, of course. The question of "success" is entirely a different one. 



224 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

sufficient for ten to twelve weeks. ^°^ The prce 
of passage ranged between 33 and 50 speeiedahr^ 
that is between $25.00 and $38.00. Children wi- 
der fourteen travelled for half price; those undo* 
one went free. The Luraas party (page 158 above) 
paid forty-two speciedaler from Gothenburg to Bos- 
ton, while the Nattestad party paid fifty dollars fron 
Gothenburg to New York in 1837. In 1839 the part' 
that came with Ansten Nattestad secured passag) 
for thirty-three dollars per person. This may bj 
regarded as normal; it was the price paid, e. g., bf 
Anders Tommerstigen and family from Christianii 
via Havre, France, to New York in 1846. Those whj 
came in June from Sogn in 1844 paid twenty- five dol- 
lars a person from Bergen to New York. The ex- 
tremes are illustrated by two groups for the ye£.r 
1839 and 1845 : The little group of immigrants wlio 
came from Stavanger via Gothenburg to Boston with 
Gitle Danielson in 1839 paid, it seems, sixty dollars 
apiece, ^'^^ while Peder Aasmundson Tanger and 
others, ninety in all, who came in 1845 from Kragero, 
paid only eighteen dollars apiece to New York. 

The inland journey, generally in the early days 
made by canal boat, varied greatly in cost, often 
amounting to as much as fourteen dollars to Mil- 
waukee or Chicago. But the additional toll inland 

208 The regulations varying -with different ships, Juno, which 
brought the first party from Inner Sogn in 1844, did not accept any 
passenger who had not provided himself with food supply for twelve 
weeks. 

209 i. e. $47. E. B. Anderson's First Chapter, page 313. 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 225 

frequently made the inland journey much more ex- 
pensive than was the ocean voyage. One pioneer, 
writing of this later, says that his whole journey 
cost him ninety dollars. ^^° In the fifties the inland 
journey was made by railroad; the railroad ticket 
from Quebec to Chicago or Milwaukee was eight dol- 
lars. 

The course of the journey has been incidentally 
indicated above. During the first years it was usual- 
ly by way of Gothenburg, sometimes via Hamburg, 
not infrequently by way of Havre. The starting 
point was Stavanger, Bergen, Skien, Drammen, 
Porsgrund and Christiania, later other ports. New 
York was most often the place of landing, but not 
infrequently Boston, in isolated instances, Fall 
River, Philadelphia and New Orleans. After 1850 
sail-ships plied extensively between Scandinavian 
ports and Quebec. ^^^ The inland journey from New 
York went by steamboat to Albany, thence by canal 
boat to Buffalo, a distance of three hundred and 
fifty miles, which usually took twelve days but often 
over two weeks. ^^^ From Buffalo the journey went 
by steamboat over the Great Lakes to Milwaukee and 

210 In American money, of which less than half for tho ocean 
voyage. 

211 Of the trials and the hardships of the ocean voyage in the 
thirties, forties and fifties, we can to-day have no conception. It 
would, however, fall outside the scope of this work to discuss that 
here. I may refer the reader to a well-written article by H. Cock Jen- 
sen in Nordmandsforhundet, December, 1907, pages 53-66. See also 
Holand's article, pages 56-60. 

212 A good account of the character of this journey is given by 
Holand, pages 65-74. 



226 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Chicago, after 1842 usually to Milwaukee. Those 
who took the Quebec route after 1850 were then 
brought to St. Levi by the railroad company's steam- 
boats, whence they went by rail to Chicago or Mil- 
waukee, ^^^ a journey which generally took four or 
five days,^^'* over a distance of 1020 miles. Milwau- 
kee-bound passengers were often shipped from Port 
Huron by way of Lakes Huron and Michigan or were 
taken by rail from Detroit across Michigan to Grand 
Haven, thence by steamboat across Lake Michigan 
to Milwaukee. ^^^ The latter was of course the short- 
er and the favored route for immigrants whose des- 
tination was Wisconsin, Northern Iowa, or Minne- 
sota. Immigrants who landed in Boston usually 
went by steamboat thence to New York and from the 
regular inland route as given above. 

The duration of the journey was always a mat- 
ter of great uncertainty. Intending emigrants who 
came from the interior of Norway often had to wait 
as long as two weeks at Bergen or Skien, as the 
case might be, before the ships on which they were 
to go sailed. The overhauling and putting in repair 
of the storm-battered sliips often took weeks. ^^^ 
The duration of the voyage across the Atlantic de- 
pended of course largely upon the state of the 



213 Via Montreal, Toronto, Port Huron and Detroit. 

214 Billed-Magasin I, 123-124, article "Om Udvandringen, " hj 
J. A. Johnson Skipsnes. 

215 To Port Huron 189 miles, thence to Milwaukee 85 miles. 

216 The author's grandfather, Ole Torjussen Flom, and party of 
about fifty-three, from Inner Sogn, were obliged to wait in Bergen 
nearly three weeks before sailing. 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 227 

weather. With this favorable a sail-boat would 
usually cross the ocean in six or seven weeks, ^^^ but 
in a voyage of such a distance it was practically cer- 
tain that there would be stormy weather sometime 
before the other side was reached. In his answer 
to this question in Billed-Magazin 1, page 123, John 
A. Johnson wrote that the average length was seven 
weeks, but he adds that those who crossed in that 
time had no reason to complain. And he speaks of 
the fact that emigrant ships have in rare cases taken 
twelve to thirteen weeks. 

The Nattestad party made, in 1837, an especially 
short voyage of thirty-two days from Gothenburg to 
Fall River. I have no record of any other ship in 
those early years which sailed so well as did Enig- 
heden. Juno, the most rapid sailer on the Atlantic 
in the forties, crossed in five weeks and three days 
in May-June, 1844, which Kristi Melaas of Stough- 
ton, "Wisconsin, who was a passenger, says broke the 
record for speed at that time. Ansten Nattestad and 
party took nine weeks in 1839 with the ship Emelia 
from Drammen. Nine weeks is the number which 
many report as the duration of the voyage in the 
forties. The party that came with the Luraas 
brothers from Tin and Gitle Danielson from Sta- 
vanger also in 1839 took nine weeks and three days 
from Gothenburg to Boston. And Aegir took nine 
weeks on its journey from Bergen to New York in 
1837. The sloop Restaurationen we recall crossed 



217 There was of course great difference in the speed of the boats. 



228 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

in ten weeks. The so-called Brook-ship Albion 
usually required from eight to nine weeks for the 
voyage. 

In stormy weather the voyage sometimes lasted 
as much as fourteen weeks. The sail-ship Tricolor 
took that long in April-July, 1845, the route being 
from Porsgrund to New York. Ingebrigt Johnson 
Helle, from Kragero, who was a passenger, writes 
of the terrors of this journey (see appendix 2). On 
a voyage made in 1848 Tricolor took fourteen weeks 
and four days, according to interview with Kari 
GuUiksdatter Mogen (from Flesberg, Numedal), who 
was a passenger on the ship (see Billed-Magazin I, 
page 388). The little sail-ship in which Nils Hansen 
Fjeld and family came in 1847 took fourteen weeks 
from Christiania to New York. ^'^ 

In this connection I shall cite from an article 
by Dr. K. M. Teigen of Minneapolis, Minnesota, en- 
titled ''Pionerliv" (Pioneer Life).^^^ He says: 

In the days of the sail-ship a voyage across the At- 
lantic Ocean was more of an undertaking than a journey 
around the world now. Most of the summer might be 
required for it if the weather was unfavorable. My 
mother's party from Flesberg and Lyngdal parishes in 
Numedal, took seven weeks and four days in 1843 with 
the brig Hercules, Captain Overvind, between Drammen 



218 For account of the voyage see Appendix 2. 

219 Th« article forms one in a series of most interesting articles 
bearing the general title ' ' Blandt Vestens Vikinger ' ' ( 'Mongst the 
Vikings of the West) printed in AmeriTca in 1901 and 1902. Dr. 
Teigen, son of O. C. Teigen, Koshkonong Pioneer of 1846, is a poet 
and story writer of the first rank among Norwegians in America. 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 229 

and New York; my father's company from Sogndal in 
Inner Sogn, three years later, lay for fourteen weeks heav- 
ing and lunging in contrary winds between Bergen and 
the promised land. And then came the journey by steam- 
er up the Hudson to Troy, thence through the "canal" 
and the sluices at Oswego by canal boats, which were 
drawn with a snail's pace by horses, lazily moving along 
the banks; then by wsiy of the lakes by steamer again 
westward to Milwaukee. For this journey of about a 
thousand miles another month went by, without counting 
the walk from Milwaukee to Koshkonong, lying seventy 
miles distant in the wilderness, whither so many of the 
earliest Norwegian immigrants were destined. 

At the place of landing the immigrants were fre- 
quently obliged to wait for several days before the 
westward journey was begun. To Rock Prairie, 
Koshkonong or Norway Grove, as the case might be, 
required another week, and correspondingly more for 
those bound for more westerly settlements. In all 
the duration of the journey from Norway to the 
settlement which was the immigrant's ultimate des- 
tination was rarely made in less than nine weeks; 
often it consumed as much as five months. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

Norwegians in Chicago, 1840-1845. A Vossing Col- 
ony. Some Early Settlers in Chicago 
from Hardanger. 

On page 94 above I have spoken briefly of the 
first Norwegian settlers in Chicago in the years 
1836-1839. On page 150 mention was made of the 
increase of the Chicago colony by the arrival of a 
number of immigrants from Voss, Norway, in 1839- 
41. As there indicated, however, many of those who 
came during these years lived there only temporar- 
ily ; we find them later as pioneers elsewhere, espec- 
ially in Dane and La Fayette Counties, Wisconsin, ^^o 
The same applies also to several of those who came 
from Voss, Sogn, and Telemarken, to Chicago in 
1843-1844 ; 22^ these went mostly to Koshkonong, 
Wiota or Long Prairie, others to the various parts 
of the Fox River settlement. 

In chapter XXI above I have further related 
some incidents from the life of some early Norwe- 
gian settlers in Chicago. In the following pages I 
shall merely try to give a brief account of new ac- 
cessions to the Chicago colony between the years 
1842 and 1850. It is estimated that there were in 



220 I instance the families of Th. Saue and Kvelve who went to 
Koshkonong, and Unde, Ulven, Skjerveim and Vinje who went to 
Wiota. 

221 For instance the Kaasa family went to Long Prairie in 1845. 



NORWEGIANS IN CHICAGO 231 

Chicago in 1850 3,000 persons of Norwegian birth; 
relatively the number was therefore considerable in 
that year. Yet I shall probably be right if I say that 
the actual number of Norwegians in the city in the 
j^ear 1842 was very small, not more than in some 
of the smallest rural settlements already established. 
I assume that as the early Norwegian immigrants 
came here with the intention of settling on a farm, 
comparatively very few were induced to remain per- 
manently in Chicago. Chicago and vicinity was not 
particularly inviting at the time; the swamps and 
marshes soon drove the incoming immigrants to the 
more inviting and the far more fertile inland coun- 
ties. 

As residents of Chicago before 1839, we have 
found Halstein Torison, Jolian Larson, Nils Rothe 
and wife Torbjor, Svein Knutson Lothe and wife 
and two children, Baard Johnson, wife and five child- 
ren, Andrew Nil son Braikke and Anders Larsen 
Flage, both with families ; these were all from Voss 
except Johan Larsen, a sailor who was from Kop- 
ervik, a little couth of Haugesund, and Torison, 
who was from Fjeldberg in Sondhordland. ^^^ Among 
Baard Johnson's sons were Anfin, John and Andrew; 
the first of these was a tailor in the employ of Simon 
Doyle on Kinzie Street. ^^^ The first directory of 
Chicago, published in 1839, gives a few more names 

222 The Newberry, whom Torrison worked for as a gardener was 
the founder of well-known Newberry Library. 

223 For this and many other facts in this chapter I am indebted 
to Strand's History, pages 182-186. 



232 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

of Norwegians. "^^ We know that Lars Davidson 
Reque lived there then-; he seems to have lived in 
the Cass Street Dutch settlement. His occupation 
was that of a fireman on the steamboat George W. 
Dole. There were two other Davidsons, Sivert^^^ 
and Peter ; in the latter we recognize our Per David- 
son Skjerveim (see above p. 199). Other names in 
the same directory are: Asle Anderson, musician; 
Endre Anderson, laborer ; Eric Anderson, pressman ; 
all three of whom lived at the same house on North 
State Street, and were probably brothers; Canute 
Lawson (Larson), city street carpenter and Iver 
Lawson, who lived at 240 Superior Street. 

But the directory does not give the name of 
another Norwegian who, if the year of his arrival 
is correctly recorded, must have been the first Scan- 
dinavian resident of Chicago, namely David John- 
son, who came in 1834. He was a pressman in the 
employ of Mr. Calhoun, the publisher of The Chica- 
go Democrat. David Johnson was a sailor, who 
came from Norway to New York as a boy, locating 
in New York in 1832, securing work as a press- 
feeder. About this time Mr. Calhoun was planning 
to install a cylinder press in place of the old hand 
press at his printing establishment in Chicago. The 
cylinder press was ordered from New York, Mr. 
Johnson having accepted Calhoun's offer as press- 

224 A. E. Strand published some facts from this directory on 
pages 183-184 of his work. 

225 He was a carpenter. Mr. Strand thinks the three were broth- 
ers. This is a mistake of course. 



NORWEGIANS IN CHICAGO 233 

man for him, he went to Chicago at the same time, 
where he put up and operated the new press. The 
Chicago Historical Society has among its documents 
Mr. Calhoun's account-book for 1834, which gives 
Mr. Johnson's name. "^ 

But there were other Norwegians in Chicago in 
1839 who do not seem to have been found by the 
census taker. Thus Steffen K. Gilderhus came there 
from Voss in 1838 and his brother Ole K. Gilderhus 
came in 1839. They lived in Chicago until 1844, 
when they settled on Koshkonong Prairie, Dane 
County, Wisconsin. Further Per Unde, Sjur Ulven 
and Arne Vinje who came there in 1839 ; these three 
settled at Wiota, Wisconsin, in 1841. Of this re- 
moval I have given a full account above chapter. 
Probably the earliest subsequent arrival from Voss 
were Torstein Saue, wife and son Gulleik, who came 
in the summer of 1840. They lived in Chicago until 
1843, when they also went to Koshkonong. At 
about the same time of the year came also Baard 
Nyre, Mads Sanve, Ole Gilbertson, Brynjulf Ronve, 
Klaus Grimestad and wife and Lars T. Rothe and 
Anna Bakketun, all from Voss, and all of whom 
were for some time residents of Chicago. Anna 
Bakketun married a Mr. Nicholson (Nikolausen), 
who died from cholera in 1849. From this marriage 
there were two sons, Henry Nicholson, who served 
throughout the war, and John G. Nicholson, who is 
still living (Orchard Street). Torstein Michael- 



226 Strand 's History, p. 187. 



234 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

son, who succeeded Halstein Torison in the employ 
of Newberry, also came in 1840 or 1841. Michael- 
son was from Voss where he was bom in 1808; he 
remained Newberry's gardener for about thirty- five 
years. 

We have above seen that some of the early im- 
migrants to Illinois were from Hardanger, Norway, 
but the number was not large. We shall speak of 
this immigration more in detail in connection with 
the settlement of Lee County, Illinois. Here it will 
be in order now to note briefly Hardanger 's contri- 
bution to the Norwegian colony in Chicago in the 
period under discussion. 

In 1839 twenty-two persons emigrated from Ul- 
vik Parish, Hardanger, and all of these came to 
Chicago. They were: Gunnar Tveito, wife and 
child ; Anders Vik, Johan Vik, Brynjulf Lekve, Lars 
Torblaa, wife and two children. Nils Vambheim and 
wife, Olav L. Mo, wife and two daughters and Lars 
Spilde, wife and four children. 2^'' This party having 
started out from Bergen left Gothenburg May 27, 
landed at Fall River, Massachusetts, August 2, took 
boat to New York, thence via Buffalo to Chicago, 
where they arrived August 25. ^^^ In Chicago they 
suffered much hardship, many were taken sick and 
died, among the latter Tveito 's and Vambheim 's 



227 Facts gathered from Norrtuindsfor'bundet II, where Rev. O. 
Olofson of Ullensvang, Hardanger, discusses most interestingly the 
early emigration from Hardanger to America (pp. 169-180). 

228 The Chicago census for 1839 does not include the names of 
any of this party. 



NORWEGIANS IN CHICAGO 235 

wives. The men secured work, some on the canal, 
some on a schooner on the river, others as wood- 
cutters in the forests about Chicago. Lekve and the 
two Vik brothers wrote an account of their trials 
which was published in Bergens Stiftstidende for 
June 11, 1841, in which they advised against emigrat- 
ing to America, and as a result there was no immi- 
gration to this country from Hardanger again be- 
fore 1846-1847. Very few of the later immigrants 
from Hardanger located in Chicago. 

Other arrivals during subsequent years were: 
1841, Peter Nelson and Knut Larson Bo; 1842, J. 
C. Anderson, and in 1843, Ole Kaasa and family, G. 
A. Wigeland, Nils Bakketun and Kandver Lydvo 
(b. 1813). Ole Kaasa moved from Chicago 
to Boone County, in 1845, but one of his sons, 
Jens, became a permanent resident of Chicago and a 
leading member of the Norwegian colony of Chicago 
during his life. Jens Olson, as he was known, was 
born in 1824 in Siljord, Upper Telemarken. Tn the 
early part of 1840 the family moved to Bamble Par- 
ish in Lower Telemarken, whence they emigrated in 
1843. They arrived in Chicago October 20 of that 
year. The brother, Thore Olson, went out to 
Boone County ; Jens settled permanently in Chicago, 
where he lived till his death in 1907. In 1853 he 
married Martha Anderson ^^^ at Capron, Illinois. ^^° 

Jens Olson was a master mason and brick-layer, 

229 She was bom in 1827 at Stokebo in Levanger Parish, Diocese 
of Bergen. 

230 Mrs. Jens Olson died in 1895. 



236 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

and he built Vor Frelsers Kirke ^^^ at the corner of 
Erie and May Streets. Later he became a contractor 
on a larger scale and erected a large number of 
school houses in Chicago. He was an ardent sup- 
porter of the Lutheran church and gave freely to its 
cause. 

Randver Lydvo ^^^ came to Chicago in October, 
1843. In June, 1844, she was married to Lars Knut- 
son Dykesten; the ceremony took place in Nils 
Eothe's house and the ceremony was performed by 
Rev. Flavel Bascum of the First Presbyterian 
church. Lars Knutson died in the cholera epidemic 
in 1849. Mrs. Knutson who is still living ^•'^ is one 
of the oldest Norwegian residents of Chicago. 

In 1844 Bryngel Henderson and wife Martha 
came to Chicago and became permanent residents 
of the city, as did also Knut Iverson Glimme, Mrs. 
Julia Nelson, Ellef G. Severtson^^^ and John A. 
Hefte. These were all from Voss; Severtson was 
from Vossevangen. Ole Bakketun and family and 
Sjur M. Saere, also with family, both from Voss, came 
to Chicago in 1844, but lived there only one year, 
when they went to Koshkonong. 

The year 1844 also brought Chicago another 
permanent resident from Voss, who later became 
prominently associated with the commercial and poli- 

231 Our Savior's Church. 

232 She was the daughter of Anders Knutson Lydvo and wife, 
Martha (Eothe). Anders Lydvo died in 1860 and Martha in 1875. 

233 She resides with her daughter, Mrs. Louis H. Johnson, at 235 
Watt Avenue, Chicago. 

234Ellev G. Seavert. 



NORWEGIANS IN CHICAGO 237 

tical life of the city. This was Iver Larson Bo, born 
1821, in Voss, Norway, who came to Chicago that 
year and not as generally found stated in or about 
1840, ^^^ locating on the north side. Iver dropped 
the surname Bo, and changed Larson to Lawson, so 
that his name became Iver Lawson. He was one of 
the organizers of the First Lutheran church in 1848, 
located at that time on Superior Street between 
Wells Street and La Salle Avenue. ^^^ Lawson took 
a prominent part in the political life of early Chi- 
cago, e. g., as member of the city council, and other- 
wise. In 1869 he was a member of the House of 
Representatives in the State Legislature. As legis- 
lator his name is most closely associated with the 
establislunent of Chicago 's excellent system of parks ; 
the creation of Lincoln Park in particular was due 
in great measure to Lawson 's efforts. ^^^ Iver Law- 
son's name is also associated with that of John An- 
derson in the founding of Skandinaven, now the 
largest and most widely circulated Norwegian news- 
paper in this country. ^^^ 

The year 1845 brought a number of accessions 
to the Norwegian colony of Chicago. Among them 
Kittil Nirison, from Bo Parish in Telemarken, one 
of the few from Telemarken who settled in Chicago 
in the early days, Knud K. Harrisville and wife Ma- 

235 So Strand, and after him Holand, p. 101. 

236 Strand, page 217. 

237 Brought out by Strand's investigation. 

238 V. F. Lawson was also the owner of The Chicago Eecord be- 
fore the Record and the Herald were combined about year 1898. 



238 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ren Karine (nee Larson), Christian Lee, from Gaus- 
dal, and Andrew Anderson, wife, Laura, and family 
from Voss. This family included a son John, born 
March, 1836, who is the well known founder and 
owner of Skandinaven and president of the John A. 
Anderson Publishing Company. ^^' 

Andrew Anderson died of the cholera in 1849, 
and to the son John, then thirteen years old, fell 
the task of supporting his mother and baby sister, 
which he did at first by peddling apples and carry- 
ing newspapers. Then he became ''printer's devil" 
and soon learned the art of distributing and setting 
type. ^^^ In the following years he was successively 
connected with The Argus, The Democratic Press 
and The Press-Tribune. In 1866 he launched a paper 
of his own, Skandinaven, which at first a small sheet 
issued weekly has grown until, through its daily, 
semi-weekly and weekly issue, it is now the largest 
and politically the most influential of Norwegian 
newspapers in the country. Mr. Anderson has en- 
gaged extensively in the publishing of books, issuing 
a far larger number of books a year than any other 
Norwegian-American publisher. In this connection 
it is to be especially mentioned that he has also in 
recent years done excellent pioneer work in the pub- 
lishing of certain educational works, as school and 
college texts of Norwegian literature, thereby facil- 

239 There were three sons, but one died at sea, and another died 
on the journey from Albany to Buffalo. 

240 Strand's History, page 266. 



NORWEGIANS IN CHICAGO 239 

itating materially instruction in this field in onr col- 
leges and universities. 

In succeeding years the Norwegian colony in 
Chicago grew rapidly. Already in 1850 it was con- 
siderable; to-day there are more Norwegians in 
Chicago than any other city in the country (see also 
footnote 443). They resided in the early days for 
the most part on the north side, south of Chicago 
Avenue, between the lake and the present Orleans 
Street. Later the region of Wicker Park became a 
Norwegian center. To-day they are found very ex- 
tensively in the vicinity of Humboldt Park and Lo- 
gan Square, the business center is along West North 
Avenue. ^'^^ 

Among the earliest Norwegian settlers of Chi- 
cago now living is to be mentioned finally Mrs. 
Martha Erickson who come to this country in 1841. 
She is the daughter of Bjorn Bjornson, who accom- 
panied Kleng Peerson to America in 1825. For ac- 
count of this see above page 50. The other twin, 
there referred to came to America in 1866 ; her name 
is Mrs. Bertha Fuglestad. They are both living in 
Chicago enjoying excellent health at the age of 
eighty-eight. Bjorn Bjornson settled in Eochester, 
New York, where he died in 1854. ^''^ On their 



241 Strand, p. 180. See also above page 50. 

242 For above facts I am indebted to Mrs. Eric Eosa of 217 
Mozart Street, Chicago, a daughter of Mrs. Faglestad. Mrs. Erick- 
son 's children: Mrs. Robert S. Carroll, Otto G. Erickson, Samuel 
Erickson and Alex Erickson. Mrs. Fuglestad 'a children are: Mrs. 
Anna Boss, Thomas B. Fuglestad in Chicago, Peter A. Fuglestad, 
Forest City, Iowa, and Mrs. Mary Jacobson in Beltram, Minnesota, 



240 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

eighty-fifth birthday in 1906, the twin sisters held a 
family festival at the home of Mrs. Eric Ross at 
which four children and one grandchild of Mrs. 
Erickson were present and Mrs. Fuglestad's four 
children, eighteen grandchildren and fifteen great 
grandchildren. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

The Earliest Norwegian Settlers in the Township of 
Pleasant Spring, Dane County, Wisconsin 

I have above spoken of the fact that Knut H. 
Roe was one of the party that emigrated with John 
Luraas from Tin, Telemarken, in 1839. These two 
men became the first Norwegians to settle in the 
townships of Pleasant Spring and Dunkirk respect- 
ively in 1843. Roe had lived for a time in La Salle 
County, Ilinois, going to Racine County, Wisconsin, 
in 1842, as we have seen above. In the fall of 1841 
a few of the settlers in Racine County had travelled 
west as far as Koslikonong Prairie, for the purpose 
of inspecting the uninhabited country there, of which 
they seem already to have heard from friends. In 
the townships of Albion and Christiana, these met 
and spoke with those who had come there from Jef- 
ferson Prairie in 1840. 

The favorable report of these explorers relative 
to the fertility of the soil and the general character 
of the countrj^ on Koslikonong created considerable 
restlessness among the pioneers at Wind Lake, in 
Racine County, and many decided to remove to Dane 
County. Among these were Knut Roe and John 
Luraas. We shall first follow the fortunes of the 
former. As soon as the snow was gone with the end 
of the winter of 1842-43, Roe walked on foot to Kosh- 



242 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

konong, where he visited the different parts of the 
prairie, and selected a spot on which to settle. Then 
he walked back to Eacine County. John Lnraas and 
family also having decided to remove to Dane 
County, the two families secured a team for the 
overland journey; they reached their destination on 
one of the last days in May. ''Two weeks before 
St. John's eve," writes Roe, "my first home, a hut 
of brushwood and leaves, supported at the four cor- 
ners by an oak, was ready sufficiently so that my 
wife and child and myself could find protection 
therein against rain and wind. ' ' This he built in the 
southeast corner of section twenty-two in the Town 
of Pleasant Spring, at a point about two miles and 
a half west of Utica. Knut Roe, his wife, Anne, and 
family were the first white settlers in the township. 
An interview with Roe which the editor of Billed- 
Magazin prints will therefore be of interest. He 
says: "I often received visits by the Indians, and 
the many deep paths in the ground showed that the 
son of the wilderness often held forth in the region 
about me. In their marches between the Lake Kosh- 
konong and the four lakes which have made Madison 
famed far and wide for its beauty, the Redskins 
often pitched camp close to my brushwood hut. 
Sometimes I accompanied them on their hunts, They 
never caused me any trouble, but on the contrary 
were always ready to be helpful. There was game 
in plenty. Almost daily I saw herds of deer, flocks 



EARLIEST NORWEGIAN SETTLERS 243 

of prairie chickens, and I was often awakened at 
night by the howling of the wolf." 

In the autumn Roe built a log cabin; in this 
cabin he and family continued to live till 1870. Dur- 
ing the earliest years, he writes, he was obliged to 
drive as far as Wliitewater, thirty miles east, or 
Madison, a distance of eighteen miles, for flour. At 
Lake Mills, twenty-two miles, there was a saw-mill. 
After a time the settlers began to sell some wheat ; 
this had to be hauled to Milwaukee, seventy-five 
miles away. Their only means of transportation at 
that time was the Kuhherulle, or block- wheeled wag- 
on, drawn by oxen, much of the way through forest, 
where a way had to be cut by the axe. Two weeks 
after Roe's settling, Ole K. Trovatten came from 
Muskego and located on the farm later owned by 
Gunder J. Felland. Trovatten, who had been a 
school teacher in Norway, had emigrated from Laur- 
dal, Telemarken, to Muskego in 1840. He was, there- 
fore, the second Norwegian to locate in Pleasant 
Spring. He, however, left for Cottage Grove that 
same fall. See below, page 252. 

The next arrivals were Osmund Lunde and his 
brother-in-law, Aslak Kostvedt, both from Vinje in 
Telemarken. The latter bought land three miles 
southeast of West Koshkonong Church, near Trovat- 
ten 's place. Lunde lived at first with Kostvedt; 
thereupon he bought land in section three. Some 
years later Lunde sold his farm to Kittil Rinden, 



244 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

oldest son of Kittil Rinden, Sr., and moved to Min- 
nesota, whither Kostvedt also moved. 

On the third of August a small group of immi- 
grants arrived and selected a home and settled di- 
rectly west of West Koshkonong Church, on section 
fourteen. These were Knut A. Juve,^'*^ his brother, 
Knut Gjotil (or Joitil), and his sister, Tone Lien, 
then a widow. Juve owned an estate in Telemarken, 
which he sold upon deciding to emigrate, in May, 
1843. They sailed on the brig Washington, which 
carried eighty-six passengers, mostly from the par- 
ishes of Hvideseid and Laurdal.^'*'* They landed in 
New York on July fourth. It was the intention of 
the members of this party to settle in Illinois, but 
in Milwaukee they were advised against doing so; 
they were told that many who had settled in Illinois 
had later moved to Wisconsin and bought homes 
there. Many remained in Milwaukee, some went di- 
rect to Koshkonong, while others, including the Juve 
party, went to Wind Lake, in Racine County. Knut 
Juve was not pleased with Wind Lake. One day he 
met a pioneer settler from the Town of Christiana, 
Dane County, who, when he noticed Juve's down- 
cast condition, said to him: '*Go farther west; not 
until you get to Koshkonong are you in America." 
Juve acted upon the advice ; he and his brother and 
sister started west soon after, arriving in the Town 
of Pleasant Spring, as we have said, on the third 



243 Knut Juve was born in 1799. Knut Joitil in 1803. 

244 Most of them in fair circumstances says Juve, 



EARLIEST NORWEGIAN SETTLERS 245 

day of August. Half a mile west of where the church 
was built two years later, they built their hut of 
brushwood, thatched with straw. 

*'Our furniture," says Juve,^''^ ** consisted of 
a few chests, that were used both as table and chairs, 
while the bed was arranged on the ground on some 
twigs and grass." Here they lived till October, 
when they made a dugout, in which they lived till 
the following summer. Both Juve and Joitil were 
soon, however, taken ill with the climate fever. In 
the interview from which we have already cited, he 
speaks of how many a time during his illness he 
longed back to the old home, kindred and friends in 
his native land. In the summer of 1844 a log cabin 
was built, and not long after Joitil and the widowed 
sister also had erected log cabins of their own in his 
immediate neighborhood. In the spring of 1844 
Juve broke two acres of ground and raised a little 
com and potatoes ; the next summer he raised enough 
of grain and potatoes for family use ; the third year 
he was able to sell a little. Such were the beginnings 
of agriculture in the wilderness. 

About the middle of August a large number 
came and located in the settlement. Among these 
were Gunleik T. Sundbo (b.l785), with wife and 
three sons, two of whom were married and had fam- 
ilies.^'*^ Others who came were: Tostein G. Bringa 
(b. 1817), with wife and son, Halvor Laurantson 

245 Interview in BUled-Magazin, 1870, page twenty-four. 

246 Torkild Sundbo and wife, Margit, later moved to Sun Prairie. 



246 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Fosseim (b. 1810), and family, his brother, Ole L. 
Fosseim, and Ole K. Dyrland (b. 1819). ^^^^ Sundbo, 
Bringa, Fosseim and Dyrland all bought land not 
far from Knut Juve and Knut Joitil. During the 
next two months the following arrived : Torbjom G. 
Vik, with wife and son Guttorm, and daughter Anna 
from Siljord, Aslak E. Groven (b. 1812), and fam- 
ily, from Laurdal, Ole E. Naeset (b. 1796), and fam- 
ily, and his brother Aadne, from Vinje, and Gunnar 
T. Mandt, from Moe, Telemarken.^''^ Groven set- 
tled about a mile east of the West Koshkonong 
Church near the Christiana Township line; the two 
Nfeset brothers also located near there. This group 
of immigrants came via Racine County, where they 
had remained a few weeks resting after the journey, 
as the guests of Even Heg. They arrived on Kosh- 
konong Prairie in the latter part of September, hav- 
ing walked from Muskego. Gunnar Mandt first came 
to Pleasant Spring, but as he did not have any- 
thing^'^^ with which to buy land, as he says, he worked 
for others there and elsewhere for five years. From 
his autobiographical sketch^^" I cite the following 
account of the method of threshing in those days : 

"There were no mowers, no reapers, binders or 
threshing machines, everything had to be done by hand, 

247 Dyrland says there were 211 immigrants on the ship on which 
he came, and most of these, it seems, were from Telemarken. 

248 His brother, also named Gunnar, came to America in 1848 ; 
T. G. Mandt, inventor of the Stoughton wagon, was a son of the latter. 

249 Endre Vraa paid his passage to America. 

250 Published in Amerika and Skandinaven in January, 1906. 



EARLIEST NORWEGIAN SETTLERS 247 

When we were to thrash, the sheaves of wheat or oats 
were placed on the ground in a large circle. Then three 
or four yoke of oxen were tied together with an iron 
chain; one man stood in the center of the circle on the 
sheaves of grain and drove the oxen around over the 
grain. These would then stamp the kernels out of the 
straw little by little, and so we kept on, until we had the 
sheaves replaced by new ones and got the straw away. 
For cleansing the grain thus secured, we used short basins 
or bowls such as were made in Norway formerly. After 
a while we got a kind of fanning-mill, mower, reaper, 
etc. But they were imperfect and cannot be compared 
with the machines and implements used nowadays." 

Gunnar Mandt worked in Chicago during the 
years 184:445, where he got seventy-five cents a day, 
but had to furnish his own keep. In 1846 he return- 
ed to Pleasant Spring; in April, 1848, he married 
Synneva Olsdatter Husebo, from Systrond, Sogn, 
who had come to America with her parents in 1844. 
Having secured his own farm (on section nine) he 
farmed there until 1875, when he moved to the vil- 
lage of Stoughton. Gunnar Mandt died in Decem- 
ber, 1907, his wife having died a month earlier. 

The greater part of nine sections (13-15 and 22- 
27) in this part of the Township of Pleasant Spring, 
was settled before the winter of 1843-44. Knut Roe 
says that, while he was alone there when he came in 
June, he had neighbors on all sides before winter 
came, although the distance between the pioneer cab- 
ins was, of course, considerable. The year 1844 
brought a large influx of settlers, chiefly from Tele- 



248 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

marken, but in part also from Voss. Among them 
I shall here speak only of Hendrik HoBve and family, 
from Voss, who located somewhat farther north, on 
section one, on the property later owned and occu- 
pied by his oldest son, Ole H?eve (Havey) ; Anfin 0. 
Holtan and family from Sogn, who settled in the 
southeastern part of the town on section thirty-six, 
where the son, Ole Holtan, later lived ; and Ole Iver- 
son and his wife Angeline and son Lewis. 

There were a few others, as Aanund 0. Drot- 
ning, from Vinje, and Knut H. Teisberg, from Laur- 
dal, Telemarken, who came to America in 1843, but 
they, too, settled elsewhere first; we shall have oc- 
casion to speak of them again. Finally, relative to 
Knut Roe, I may add that he and his wife continued 
to live on the old homestead till their death ; he died 
as early as 1874, but she lived till 1908, being then 
a little over ninety years of age. The homestead was 
owned by the oldest son, Helleik. On the occasion of 
Mrs. K. Roe's ninetieth birthday, all her children, 
eight grandchildren and twenty-five great-grand- 
children, gathered at the old home to commemorate 
the event.^^^ 

We shall now turn to Dunkirk Township, the 
earliest settling of which also dates from 1843. 



251 Ole K. Roe of Stoughton, is a son of K. Roe; other children 
are: Mrs. F. Johnson, Mrs. Ole Thorsen, Mrs. O. Swerig and Mrs. 
J. King. Since the above was written I have learned that Helleik 
Roe has died (April, 1909). 



CHAPTER XXIX 

The First Norwegian Settlers in the Townships of 

Dunkirk, Dunn, and Cottage Grove, in 

Dane County, Wisconsin. 

The first Norwegian settler in the Town of Dun- 
kirk was John Nelson Luraas. Together with Helge 
Grimsrud he had explored Dunkirk and surrounding 
country in the fall of 1842 and selected a site on 
which to settle. His father, Nils Johnson Luraas 
(b. 1789), arrived from Norway in June, 1843, and 
came with his son direct from Muskego to Kosh- 
konong, where the party arrived on June sixteenth. 
An American by the name of John Wheeler had set- 
tled in the town two weeks earlier, being the only 
white man there.^^- Luraas settled on section three, 
about two miles east of the present city of Stough- 
ton, and three miles south of where his companion, 
Knut Roe, located in the Town of Pleasant Spring. 
Only about a week after Luraas 's arrival, two more 
families, who also came from Muskego, arrived and 
settled there, namely, Helge Sivertson Grimsrud, 
wife Birgitte, son Sigurd, and Hans P. Tverberg 
and wife Ingeborg, and John P. Tverberg. The for- 

252 Herein I accept the authority of BiUed-Magazin. The History 
of Dane County, however, says that John Luraas was the first white 
settler in the town, Chauncey Isham and .John Wheeler coming soon 
after. 



250 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

mer had emigrated from Norway (via Drammen and 
Gothenburg) the year before, while Tverberg had 
come in 1841. They were all from Tin, in Tele- 
marken. Helge Grimsrud possessed considerable 
means in Norway and owned a fine estate, which he 
sold upon emigrating. Grimsrud bought land in 
section two, directly east of Luraas, while Tverberg 
settled a mile south of Luraas in section ten.^" The 
next settler was Gaute Ingbrigtson Gulliksrud (b. 
1815), from Tin, Telemarken, who arrived there 
five weeks later, that is, in August.^^"* He came in a 
a party of about one hundred and twenty persons, 
mostly from Telemarken, embarking at Skien, and 
sailed via Havre de Grace to New York. Most of the 
party went temporarily to Muskego. Gulliksrud did 
not like Muskego, and soon after set out for Kosh- 
konong. Having selected a location for his home, 
he bought, for $200, a hundred and sixty acres of 
land, near his countrymen, chiefly in section ten, and 
erected his log cabin a short distance north of Hans 
Tverberg 's home. 

There were then in the fall of 1843 four Nor- 
wegian families settled in the Town of Dunkirk. In 



253 Helge Grimsrud 's wife 's parents and a sister had emigrated in 
1841 and located in Muskego. Upon returning to Muskego from 
Koshkonong in the fall of 1842, Grimsrud went direct to Milwaukee 
and bought 240 acres of land, being the first to purchase land in Dun- 
kirk. He died in 1856. 

254 Two of hia maternal uncles and a brother had emigrated in 
1839 and located in Muskego; letters from these induced them to 
emigrate. 



FIRST NORWEGIAN SETTLERS 251 

the following year a considerable number of immi- 
grants came from Norway (Telemarken, Voss, and 
Sogn) but Dunkirk did not receive many of those 
who came that year; they settled mostly in Christi- 
ana or Pleasant Spring, while some now began to 
find homes in Cottage Grove and Dunn, immediately 
north and west of Pleasant Spring. 

The first Norwegian settlers in the Town of 
Dunn were Nils Ellefson Mastre and Lars Mastre, 
who had come to America in 1845; they located in 
Dunn, just across the Pleasant Spring line soon after 
arriving ; American families had settled in the town- 
ship before them. Ingebrigt Johnson Helle, from 
Kragero, was the next settler there, but he didn't 
enter Dunn until 1849 ; he emigrated in 1845 but had 
worked in Buffalo four years. 

John 0. Hougen, from Solor, Norway, was the 
first Norwegian to settle in Cottage Grove, where he 
came in the summer of 1842, consequently a year be- 
fore Roe and others came to Pleasant Spring. Hou- 
gen had been a baker in Christiana and usually went 
by the name of John Baker (or Bager). Some years 
later he removed to Coon Prairie, in Vernon County, 
Wisconsin. Bjom Tovsen Vasberg, from Laurdal, 
Telemarken, also located in Cottage Grove in the 
summer of 1842. Nothing seems to be known of his 
antecedents, and little that is favorable seems to be 
known of him during his brief career in the town- 
ship. He later moved to Minnesota, where he lived, 
it seems, a roving life, being at last found dead on 



252 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

the public highway. He was a notorious, and as far 
as I know, the only instance of the vagabond and 
ne'er-do-well among the Norwegian pioneers of 
those days. The next Norwegian settler in the Town 
of Cottage Grove was Halvor Kostvedt,^^^ from Vinje 
Parish, who emigrated in the spring of 1842 ; he lived 
for a year in Christiana Township, and came to Cot- 
tage Grove in the summer of 1843 and made a dugout 
on section twenty-four, in which he lived the first 
year. Others who came on the same ship were Alex- 
ander 0. Baekhus (or Norman), Ole A. Haatvedt and 
Osmund Lunde. The first of these located in Chris- 
tiana, but later moved to Minnesota; Ole Haatvedt 
settled on Jefferson Prairie, whence some years later 
he went to Iowa, while Asmund Lunde, after re- 
maining a year in Muskego, came to Pleasant Spring, 
as we have seen, in the summer of 1843. Ole Tro- 
vatten, whom we have already met, both in Muskego 
and in Pleasant Spring, came to Cottage Grove in 
the fall of 1843. Trovatten is reputed to have been 
a man of unusual natural gifts and considerable el- 
oquence. He served as deacon in West Koshkonong 
and Liberty Prairie churches for many years, a ca- 
pacity in which he had officiated also in Norway. He 
later affiliated with the East Koshkonong Church, 
which congregation he, with 0. P. Selseng, repre- 
sented on the occasion of the founding of the Nor- 



25 S Called also Halvor i Vinje. 



EARLIEST NORWEGIAN SETTLERS 253 

wegian Synod in East Koshkonong Church, on Feb- 
ruary 5th, 1853.256 

Asmund Aslakson Naestestu, with wife and fam- 
ily, came to Muskego in the fall of 1843, where he 
worked as a blacksmith for six months. He removed 
to Koshkonong early the next spring, going direct 
to Halvor Kostvedt, with whom he lived in the dug- 
out the first summer. In 1847 he bought land in the 
same locality. Naestestu^^^ is said to have been 
famed in Norway as a mechanical genius of rare 
talent. On one occasion King Carl Johan was shown 
a gun made by the farmer's son in Vinje; the King 
afterwards sent Asmund Naestestu a silver cup as 
a token of his pleasure over the excellent workman- 
ship of the gun. Asmund Naestestu bought a farm 
a mile and a half northwest of Nora Post Office in 
1854, where he, in the course of time, became the 
owner of two hundred acres. Among others who 
came to America with Asmund Naestestu in 1843 and 
later settled in Cottage Grove, were Naestestu 's 
nephews, Aslak and Halvor Olson Baekhus (or 
Gjergjord as they called themselves in this country), 



256 Page 15 of Eort Uddrag of den norske Synodes Historie, by 
Rev. Jacob Aal Ottesen, Decorah, 1893. 

257 Asmund Naestestu was the son of Aslak Nsestestu, a man of 
much native ability and influence in Vinje. Anna Naestestu, a daugh- 
ter of Aslak, married Ole B«khus; they were the parents of the 
Bsekhus (Gjergjord) brothers of whom we shall speak in the next 
chapter. 



254 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Bjom 0. Hustvedt, Halvor Donstad and Knut Teis- 

]3gj.g2S8 

Finally I shall add the names of Bjom A. Ston- 
dall and Bjom Stevens Hustvedt, two of Cottage 
Grove's well known early pioneers, who emigrated 
in 1843 and stopped through the winter in Muskego ; 
thence they came to Koshkonong, locating in Cottage 
Grove in the spring of 1844.^^^ Bjom Stondal was 
from Vinje, in Telemarken, being born on the farm 
Naestestu in Bograend in 1823. He sailed on the ship 
Vinterflid from Porsgrund in the spring of 1843, as 
he relates.^^° They were eleven weeks on the ocean 
before reaching New York. The objective point was 
Milwaukee and the Muskego settlement; here they 
stopped during the winter with an American by the 
name of Putnam, — seven persons in a hut that was 
fourteen feet long and ten feet wide. In the spring 
of 1844 he walked west to Koshkonong, where he de- 
cided to buy eighty acres of land in section thirty- 
two in southern Cottage Grove, and begin the occu- 
pation of a farmer. Four years later he married 
Gunhild Bergland. Bjom Stondal died in April, 
1906, at the age of eighty- three, survived by his wife 
and nine children. 



258 They came in the same ship as Knut Joitil and Anund Drotn- 
ing, who, as we have seen, located in Pleasant Spring. Knut Teis- 
berg moved from Cottage Grove to Pleasant Spring in 1846. 

259 Hustvedt wrote his name Ben Stevens. 

260 According to interview printed in Amerilca. 



CHAPTEE XXX 

The Expansion of the Koshkonong Settlement into 

Sumner and Oakland Townships in Jefferson 

County. Increased Immigration from Tel- 

emarken. New Settlers from Kragero, 

Drammen and Numedal. 

In our discussion of the settling of Koshkonong 
by immigrants from Numedal in 1840-42, mention 
was made of Tore Knudson Nore and wife Gjertud 
among those who arrived in 1842. Tore Nore did 
not, however, locate in Christiana or Albion town- 
ships, where his compatriots had settled. He select- 
ed land about three miles southeast of where Gunnul 
Vindeig had located, across the Jefferson County line 
in what later was namer Sumner Township. Tore 
Nore, who was then a man of about forty years of 
age and had a large family, had emigrated in the 
spring of 1842, but had not, as the immigrants from 
Numedal so far had generally done, gone to Jeffer- 
son Prairie or Rock Prairie, but had stopped in 
Muskego. Being dissatisfied here, he decided to go 
to Koshkonong. Taking his family with him, he 
arrived there about October first of that year. Soon 
after he erected his log cabin in Sumner,^*^^ being, 
therefore, the first Norwegian to settle in that part 



261 This log-cabin was still standing not many years ago. 



256 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

of Jefferson County, his being the second family to 
enter the township of Sumner.^^^ Here he lived till 
his death in 1868, at the age of seventy- six. Gjertrud 
Nore died in 1884. Three sons are prosperous farm- 
ers living in the neighborhood of the father's orig- 
inal homestead. A daughter, Gro, married Peder 
Larsen Svartskuren (or Svartskor) in Norway, in 
June, 1842. They became the second Norwegian 
family to settle in the township. Peder Svartskuren 
was a native of Konigsberg, Norway, being, as it 
appears, the third emigrant to America from that 
locality.^*^^ 

In an interview with Svein Nilson printed in 
1870, Peder Svartskuren mentions Bjorn Anderson 
(Kvelve), Amund Hornefjeld, Gunnul Vindeig and 
Thorsten Olson as being the only Norwegians living 
in the neighboring towns of Albion and Christiana 
when he came there. He speaks of Sumner Town- 
ship as being a heavy primeval forest, with only here 
and there a stretch of open country. ''There was an 
abundance of game, deers and prairie chickens, and 
the lake (Koshkonong) and creek were full of fish. 
The Indians were roving about the country, but they 
did no one any harm and were kindly and ever ready 
to help." 

Mrs. Svartskuren, who is now eighty-seven 
years old and quite feeble, has, since 1902, lived at 



262 An American family had come there before him. 

263 The first emigrants from Kongsberg were Thomas Braaten, 
and Halvor Funkelien. 



EXPANSION OF KOSHKONONG SETTLEMENT 257 

Leeds, North Dakota, with a son, Carl, he having 
sold the homestead after the father's death, and 
moved to Viroqua, Wisconsin, and later to Leeds. 
Peder Svartskuren was among the founders of the 
East Koshkonong Church; he was a man of strong 
character, who enjoyed in large degree the love and 
the respect of his fellows. 

The Town of Sumner did not receive many acces- 
sions from Norway. In the same interview Svart- 
skuren says : ' ' There are now twelve Norwegian fam- 
ilies, besides six Swedish families. The rest are 
German and English." 

The Town of Oakland, Jefferson County, also 
received a few settlers at this early period. The 
earliest arrival there was, I believe, Tollef Baekhus 
and wife, Aasild ; they came to Koshkonong in 1843 
and located two miles east of the village of Rock- 
dale. They were from Laurdal Parish, in Upper 
Telemarken, had been married in 1838, and had two 
children when they came to this country. Tollef 
Bffikhus died in 1897, the widow lived until 1906, be- 
ing ninety years old at the time of her death. A son, 
John Bsekhus, now owns the homestead. ^^^ 

In Chapter XVIII above we gave an account of 
the founding of the Koshkonong Settlement, which 
began in the townships of Christiana, Deerfield and 
Albion, in 1840-41. We spoke briefly of the founders 
and of those who came and joined the three groups 
of pathfinders in the following year. In Chapter 

264 They had twelve children in all. 



258 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

XXVIII a similar record has been given of the events 
which led to the settling of the Town of Pleasant 
Spring by four families in 1843, and by others in 
the following year. We have also observed how the 
towns of Dunkirk and Cottage Grove became settled 
in 1843, and that Dunn received its first Norwegian 
settlers in 1844. The towns of Sumner and Oakland, 
in Jefferson County, in the eastern extremity of 
Koshkonong Prairie also received a small contingent 
of Norwegian immigrant settlers in 1842 and 1843 
respectively. The original nucleus and the subse- 
quent expansions of the settlement, east, west and 
north, are thereby indicated. 

In four years after its inception, the settlement 
covered an area of about fifteen square miles. But 
the settlers lived, for the most part, far apart; geo- 
graphically they had made ample provisions for a 
great settlement in this garden spot of Wisconsin. 
While there were as yet (in 1843) not more than a 
hundred and fifty individuals in the settlement, there 
was room for thousands more without going beyond 
the boundary as already laid out. The beginning 
made in a few years was remarkable, but the growth 
in the years immediately following was even more 
wonderful. For a time Koshkonong was the desti- 
nation of four-fifths of those who emigrated from 
Norway. 

The year 1842 records the beginning of the great 
development, which in five years resulted in the set- 
tling of almost the whole of this vast area by immi- 



EXPANSION OF KOSHKONONG SETTLEMENT 259 

grants from Norway. The next year was that of the 
great influx from various points in Telemarken, es- 
pecially, Siljord, Laurdal and Hvideseid, although 
there were considerable numbers also from Vinje 
and Tin. The year 1843 was the one in which the 
Telemarkings took possession of Koshkonong; they 
gradually selected their permanent homes in Pleas- 
ant Spring, extending into Dunkirk and Cottage 
Grove and the northeastern sections of Christiana 
(as Eggleson, Bjoin, Hauge, Borgerud, Bosbon and 
Kingland). The Numedalians came only in limited 
numbers after 1842 and did not spread much be- 
yond the original center around East Koshkonong 
church in southeastern Christiana and northern Al- 
bion townships. Those on the extreme west were 
Levi Kittilson, Levi Holtan, 0. 0. Lenaas and Tore 
E. Smithback, all coming somewhat later than those 
in the eastern extremity. The immigration from 
Numedal, which began in RoUaug, is after 1842 al- 
most confined to Flesberg, a parish which furnished 
no immigrants before 1842. 

In the year 1843, there came to Koshkonong, 
35 families and many single persons, or a total of 
182 individuals. This was the year of heaviest im- 
migration to Koslikonong. The year's influx is sig- 
nificant in the large number of districts in Norway 
represented, Telemarken leading as has been pointed 
out above. In addition to 9 persons from Numedal, 
and a small contingent from Voss, the first party 
of fourteen persons arrived from Kragero. These 



260 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

first immigrants from Kragero were: Bjom 0. 
Eom, Kjostolf Tollefsen Hulderoen ^^s (b. 1821), 
Even E. Buaas (b. 1799), Abraham K. Eonningen, 
Erick K. Eonningen, Halvor E. Dahl (b. 1802), wife 
Ajine, and family, Torbjom K. Eonningen, Glus P. 
Tyvang and wife, Audi, and Peder K. Eonningen. 
From Leikanger in Sogn ^^^ Anna L. Eggum (or Eg- 
gene, b. 1811), who in 1845 married Sjur C. Droks- 
vold, from Voss; from Lier came Knut 0. Lier, as 
also the widow Anne Thorstad, Knut Asdohldalen 
and Gabriel Bjornson (from Drammen) ; from 
Drangedal came Baruld J. Strandskougen and fam- 
ily, from Sandsvaerd, Ellef A. Berg, from Skauger, 
Halvor J. Stubbemd, from Eogen, Lars P. Haukelien 
and family, from Holte, Tarald E. Midboe, from 
Gjerpen, Peder H. Moe, and from Hallingdal, Even 
Olson. 

We have noted the fact above that there came 
for the first time in 1843 a group of immigrants 
from Flesberg Parish in Numedal. We shall note 
here briefly who these were. For the facts I am 
indebted to Mrs. Levi Holtan, formerly of Utica, 
at present of Stoughton, Wisconsin. The name of 
the ship on which these people came, Mrs. Hol- 
tan cannot remember, but it was commanded by Cap- 
tain Overvind; the first mate was Friis. In the 
party of ninety persons were : Halvor Kjolen, Juul 

265 Came to Muskego in 1843, went back to Norway and returned, 
settling in Koshkonong in 1846. 

266 There was one immigrant from Aurland, Sogn, in 1843, but 
he stopped the first winter in Muskego. See next chapter. 



EXPANSION OF KOSHKONONG SETTLEMENT 261 

Harare and wife Anne, Tostein Ullebaer and Halvor 
Aasen, who went to Jefferson Prairie, ^^^ Gulleik 
Laiigen, who stopped in Rochester, but soon after 
came west, locating on Rock Prairie, Paal ("Spelle- 
man") Lund, Guldbrand G. Holtan, a widower, his 
brother Ole G. Holtan, ^^s Knut K. Bakli and Kittil 
G. Bakli and families, Ambjor Olsdatter and Syn- 
nove Kristoffersdatter Bekkjorden from Lyngdal 
Annex of Flesberg. This was the ship on which 
also Per Svartskuren and wife Gro, Knut Lier and 
Baruld Johnson came on.^^^ In the same party emi- 
grated also Klemet Larson Stalsbraaten and wife 
Gunild, and his brother Halvor Stalsbraaten (Kra- 
vik) from Sigdal in Numedal. Halvor Stalsbraaten 
took the name Kravik from the estate where he had 
worked five years before emigrating. Reverend 
Kasberg writes me, citing Halvor Kravik, that they 
(the Stalsbraatens) 

"Bought tickets for America at Konigsberg Fair, left 
Drammen May 6 ult., 1843, arrived at New York July 
fourth, ninety passengers on the ship." * * * "The com- 
pany of immigrants went from Milwaukee to Muskego. 
Halvor Kravik and a young boy from Sandsvaerd walked 
to Koshkonong, arriving Friday evening. Monday mom- 

267 Rev. K. A. Kasberg, of Spring Grove, Minn., writes me that 
Halvor Kravik in speaking of some of these people says Halvor Aasen 
went to Rock Run as did also Paal " Spellemand. " He also adds 
the name Gunnar Springen who, he says, went to Rock Prairie. 

268 As I learn through Rev, G. A. Larsen. 

269 The name of the ship, as we learn elsewhere, was Eeroules. 
See above page 228. 



262 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ing Halvor was at work for one of the Englishmen further 
south. Kravik took a claim in 1844. During the winter 
he staid with Gunnul Vindeg, sleeping in the part of the 
house occupied at the time by Rev. Dietrichson, while the 
parsonage was being built." 

The rest of the party also came to Koshkonong 
a short while after, except those who went to Rock 
County. Ole G. Holtan (b. 1821) and Ambjor Olsdat- 
ter (b. 1821) were married a few weeks after arriv- 
ing; Ole Holtan died in 1851, leaving wife and two 
children, Anna and Ole. Anna later became the wife 
of Levor Kittilsen Fjose (Levi Kittilsen) well known 
farmer and prominent in the councils of the West 
Koshkonong Church. ^^° Ambjor, widow of Ole G. 
Holtan, married Nils Torgerson Grotrud in 1852 ; he 
had come to America in 1849.^^^ 

We have, on page 183 above, spoken of Lars J. 
Holo, who was the earliest immigrant from Rings- 
aker (1839). From Rochester, New York, he came 
to Muskego, Racine County, Wisconsin, in 1841; in 
1843 he located permanently on Koshkonong. His 
son Johannes also settled on Koshkonong, as also the 
sons Lars and Martin Holo. The latter now owns 
the farm originally purchased in Albion Township 



270 Levi Kittilsen died suddenly in 1907 ; the widow is living 
(at Stoughton) ; a daughter, Andrea, is married to Rev. Abel Lien, 
Ada, Minn.; a son, Carl, is in Nome, Alaska. Dr. Albert N. Kittil- 
sen, another son, owns valuable mines at Nome, Alaska; he is living 
in the State of Washington. 

271 Nils Grotrud assumed the farm name Holtan and is there- 
fore Nils T. Holtan. He located first on the Holtan farm south of 
Utica. About 1868 the family settled two miles east of Utica. 



EXPANSION OF KOSHKONONG SETTLEMENT 263 

by Bjom Kvelve. Halvor Kravik (b. 1820) was the 
son of Lars A. Stalsbraaten and wife Maria. In 1845 
he married Kristi Guldbrandson, who had come to 
America in 1842. They bought land and settled per- 
manently about three-quarters of a mile south of 
East Koshkonong Church at what came to be called 
Kravikhaugen (the Kravik hill). The homestead 
has now for many years been occupied by the oldest 
son, Lars C. Kravik. Since about 1899, Halvor and 
his wife lived with their son-in-law, Rev. K. A. Kas- 
berg, in Stoughton, Wisconsin, later in Grand Forks, 
North Dakota, now for several years past at Spring 
Grove, Houston County, Minnesota. Mrs. Kravik 
died a year ago; Mr. Kravik in February, 1909. 

Kjostolf Hulderoen (Hulroya), who came to 
Muskego in 1843, went back to Norway two years 
later, but returned to America in 1846, settling on 
Koshkonong, at Cambridge. In 1848 he married 
Hsege 0. Sube, who had come from Telemarken to 
this country that year. In 1853 he started a general 
merchandise business in Rockdale, Dane County, 
where he lived till his death in 1889. The widow is 
living with her oldest daughter Mrs. John Halvorson 
in Rockdale. A son, Charlie C. Tellefson, one of 
Dane County's prominent democrats, resides at Uti- 
ca, Wisconsin. 

Gabriel Bjornson was one of the few who came 
to Koshkonong from the region of Drammen. He 
married Gunhild Grotrud, sister of Nils T. Holtan 
(Grotrud). Bjornson is said to have been the first 



264 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Norwegian to be admitted to the bar in this coun- 
try. He died in Ada, Minnesota, in 1889 ; he was at 
that time County Attorney of Norman County. 

There were two families from Voss, who had im- 
migrated earlier among those who settled permanent- 
ly on Koshkonong in 1843, namely Styrk Olson Saue, 
who, we have seen, came to America in 1837, and 
Gulleik Torsteinson Saue, who immigrated in 1840; 
they had lived most of the time in Chicago. There 
Styrk Saue married Eli K. Vaete ; she died at Deer- 
field about 1885. Styrk died in 1894. Gulleik Saue 
(b. 1821) married Donant Rolje in 1844. They 
purchased land in northern Christiania, not far from 
Cambridge ; here, and in neighboring parts of Deer- 
field Township, Gulleik Thompson, as he called him- 
self, became in the course of time the owner of about 
1,000 acres of farm land. At the time of his death 
he was Koshkonong 's wealthiest farmer. His son, 
Hon. T. G. Thompson, occupies the old home and 
owns the estate. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

The Coming of the First Large Party of Immigrants 
from Sogn. New Accessions from Voss. 

It has been noted above that one of the earliest 
pioneers at Wiota, La Fayette County, Wisconsin, 
was from Vik Parish in Sogn, namely, Per Unde 
who emigrated in 1839. In 1842 Ole Unde came and 
joined his brother at Wiota. In 1843 Ole Schser- 
dalen -^^ came to America from Aurland, Sogn ; he 
was the first emigrant from that parish. It has been 
said that there was a party of immigrants from 
Sogn in 1843, but tliis I doubt as I have been able 
nowhere to verify it. Ole Schaerdalen went to Mus- 
kego where he stopped the first year, then he joined 
the party of Sognings who came that year and passed 
through Muskego en route for Koshkonong. Per 
and Ole Unde wrote letters home to Vik Parish; in 
response to these letters, full of praise for Wiscon- 
sin, there came many immigrants from Vik during 
the next two years. Ole Schaerdalen in a similar way 
aided in promoting emigration from Inner Sogn. 

In Aurland Parish lived Ole Torjussen Flom ; he 
had travelled much in Norway and come in contact 
with people who had relatives and friends in Amer- 

272 So written, but pronounced Schirdalen in the dialect. My 
father is the authority for the statement that Schaerdalen waa the 
first to emigrate from Aurland. 



266 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ica, and who themselves were planning to emigrate. 
He was well acquainted with Schaerdalen and he had 
been in Vik and knew, it seems, the Unde family. 
Ole T. Flom (b. 1794) was the son of Torjus Flom 
(b. about 1765) generally called Torjus i Midgarden, 
who was the owner of a valuable estate at Flaam 
near Fretheim. There were three sons, Gulleik, Ole, 
and Knut ; by the right of primogeniture the estate 
would fall to the oldest son, Gulleik Flom. Ole Flom 
had selected for purchase a place then for sale, in 
Voss, and it was his intention to remove to Voss. 
He was, however, prevailed upon not to do this by 
his father who told him he would give him half of 
the family estate. When, however, the time came, 
the temptation to follow the general practice and give 
the estate intact over to the oldest son became too 
strong for the father and he gave it all to Gulleik 
Flom. 

Ole T. Flom then began thinking about emi- 
grating to America. In 1843 he went to Vik Parish 
and while there he and Anfin J. Seim agreed to go 
to America. After he returned to Aurland others in 
the parish also began to make preparations for leav- 
ing for the New World and the fever spread to Fres- 
vik and Systrond and up as far as Sogndal Parish. 
In the spring of 1844 a considerable number from 
these regions and from Vik stood ready to emigrate. 
Ole T. Flom, wife Anna and sons Ole and Anders, 
Ivar H. Vangen and Knut Aaretuen (i Aureto), 



IMMIGRANTS FROM SOGN 267 

wife Anna ^^^ and three children left Aurlandsvan- 
gen on the 12th of April. They had engaged pas- 
sage on Juno, Captain Bendixen, but were obliged 
to wait in Bergen two weeks before sailing. In the 
meantime others who also were to go on Juno joined 
them at Bergen. Among them were the Melaas fam- 
ilies from Normn Annex of Sogndal Parish; they 
were the first to emigrate from that district. This 
party was composed of the following eleven mem- 
bers: Mons Lasseson Melaas (b. 1787) and wife 
Martha ; Kristen L. Melaas, wife Aase and daughter 
Anna; Johans K. Bjelde and wife Kristi; Ole A. 
Slinde, wife Martha ; ^^'^ and two children. 

The following persons from various parts of 
Sogn also embarked on Juno : Anders Engen, Per 
L. Gjerde, Michel J. Engesaeter and wife Synnove 
from Systrand, Ole I. Husebo with wife Ingeleiv and 
children, and Ole A. Vaerken (Grinde) from Leikan- 
ger, Nils T. Seim, wife Mari and children (3) and 
Thomas T. Seim from Laerdal, and the aforemen- 
tioned Anfin I. Seim from Vik with his wife Britha 
and five children. ^^^ There were about sixty per- 
sons on Juno when it sailed in May. At the same 



273 She was a daughter of Ole Schserdalen. 

274 A daughter of Mons Melaas. Their husbands took the name 
Melaas in this country. 

275 Relative to the personnel of this party and the sailing of 
Juno I am especially to Kristi Melaas, with whom I have had several 
interviews on the question. She is the oldest surviving member of 
the party and is still living at Stoughton, Wisconsin. My father, 
Ole 0. Flom, has also supplied many facts; he was thirteen years 
old at the time of immigration. 



268 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

time two other ships sailed from Bergen with immi- 
grants for America; they were Kong Sverre, Cap- 
tain Vingaard and Albion, Captain Brock. A very- 
large number of those who embarked on these ships 
also were from Sogn, especially Vik, nearly all these 
going to Long Prairie (see next chapter). Among 
those who came to Koshkonong were: Torstein 
Thronson Selseng and wife Kari, Knut Gjerde, Ole 
Selseng, Jakob I. Gjerdene, from Sogndal, Elling 0. 
Flatland, wife and children, and Sjur S. Olman. 

Kong Sverre and Albion sailed three days be- 
fore Juno, but arrived in New York several weeks 
later. Juno made the journey to New York in five 
weeks and three days, which, says Kristi Melaas, 
broke the record for fast sailing at that time. ' ' The 
Brock ship" took eight weeks for the journey, while 
Kong Sverre was on the ocean twelve weeks. The 
party that came with Juno was therefore the first 
large group of Sognings to land in America, the 
date of their landing being St. John's Eve. From 
New York they went by canal-boat to Buffalo, where 
they arrived on the fourth of July. Here they were 
put on board an old steamboat, which the immigrants 
feared would go to the bottom at any moment of 
the journey, says Mrs. Melaas, over the lakes to 
Milwaukee, where they arrived at the end of July. ^^^ 

276 Kristi Melaas called the boat "ein rota haot skiJcke-leg." 
She says the agent who had charge of the journey to Milwaukee was 
a man by the name of Hohlfelt, a typical immigrant "runner," it 
seems, whom she styles as "ain rigele bedragar, ain stakkars Mann 
va han. " 



IMMIGRANTS FROM SOGN 269 

Kristi Melaas says the agent weighed their goods at 
every stopping place and charged toll each time. 
There was no interpreter on the boat who could 
voice their objections. The ticket from New York 
to Chicago was $14, but by additional charges along 
the route, the expense of the inland journey was 
greater than that from Bergen to New York. In 
Milwaukee most of the party, including Ole Vendelbo, 
Ole T. Flom, Knut Aaretuen and Michel Enges^eter 
went to Koshkonong via Muskego, but the Melaas 
family went to Chicago, as did Ole Husebo and one 
man from Vik who had intended to go south to Mis- 
souri, 2^^ and they were all met in Chicago by one 
who was to bring them to Missouri. It seems, how- 
ever, that the departure hither was delayed for 
weeks by their guide who was addicted to drink. In 
the meantime the Melaas families becoming discour- 
aged and having met a certain Ole Bringa who urged 
them to come to Koshkonong, decided to go where 
the rest of the party had already directed their 
course. They then bought two yoke of oxen and 
drove to Koshkonong, stopping in Pleasant Spring 
Township about two miles northeast of Lake Kegon- 
sa. 

Soon after arriving at Koshkonong they were 
met by Ole Trovatten who aided them in the selec- 
tion of land and who accompanied Johans and Ole 
Melaas to Milwaukee to purchase the land selected. 
The two brothers bought each forty acres at first in 

277 This man we learn was Anfin Seim (see next chapter). 



270 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

section three ; later Johans bought out Ole and eighty 
acres more adjacent to the acquired forty. Ole A. 
Melaas thereupon located on section thirty-five in 
Cottage Grove Township, a mile northeast of his 
brother's property. The Melaas families all located 
in that immediate neighborhood. Ole T. Flom 
bought eighty acres in Cottage Grove Township, a 
mile north of Door Creek where also Ole Vendelbo 
Olson settled, purchasing forty acres. Olson, how- 
ever, sold this out to Ole T. Flom not long after, and 
moved to Minnesota. Nile Seim also located near 
there, while Per Gjerde settled in section two in 
Pleasant Spring, near the Cottage Grove line. Ole 
I. Husebo settled in Christiana Township and Sjur 
Olman settled a mile north of Nora Post-office. Ivar 
Vangen located on Bonnet Prairie, Michel Enges^eter 
lived a few years on Koshkonong, then removed to 
Norway Grove. Knut Aaretuen settled in Kosh- 
konong, but went west (to Minnesota) after some 
years. Anfin Seim, who was from Vik, went with the 
Melaas families to Chicago, and thence to Long 
Prairie, Boone County, Illinois (see next chapter). 
The only family from Vik to locate in Koshkonong 
that year was that of Mons Halringa, who settled in 
Pleasant Spring, a mile or so southwest of Utica ; the 
homestead being that later occupied by his son 
Simon. 

The immigration to Koshkonong in 1844 was 
thus principally from Sogn, and it is to be noted that 
a considerable number of these settled in the north- 



IMMIGRANTS FROM SOGN 271 

ern extremity of the settlement, north of Door Creek 
and Nora. At the same time there were new acces- 
sions from other districts, especially Voss and Laur- 
dal in Telemarken, while from Eollaug came that 
year Gisle H. Venaas and Anfin A. Haugerud. 
Among those who came from Voss I shall name here 
the brothers Nils and Sjur Droksvold, Ole Droks- 
vold, Henrik 0. Haeve, Erik V. Rio (Williams), Erik 
S. Fliseram, and Knut E. Eokne ; all these had fam- 
ilies. 

Among earlier immigrants from Voss who locat- 
ed in Dane County in 1844 were Ole and Steffen Gil- 
derhus; the former had immigrated in 1839 while 
Steffen came in 1838. As has been observed above, 
Lars D. Rekve, who came to America in 1839, did not 
actually settle in Koshkonong until 1844. Eokne 
and Venaas settled in Christiana, the former three 
miles west of Cambridge, the latter two miles north- 
west of Eockdale. Most of the Vossings, however, 
located in Deerfield Township, south and west of 
the village of Deerfield. We shall now turn to the 
immigrants who came from Sogn with Kong Sverre 
and Albion in 1844 and did not settle in Wisconsin. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

Long Prairie in Boone County, Illinois; a Sogning 
Settlement. 

In the vicinity of the present village of Capron, 
Illinois, a few Norwegians located in 1843, forming 
the nucleus of what later came to be known as Long 
Prairie. This settlement is located only a few miles 
south of Jefferson Prairie (which extends into Illi- 
nois) and is about sixty- five miles distant west from 
Chicago. The earliest Norwegian settlers here were 
Thor Olson Kaasa and Thov Knutson Traim, his 
wife Ingebjorg and sons, Knut, Kjetil, and Ole, from 
Siljord in Upper Telemarken. Thor Kaasa was the 
son of Ole Kaasa and wife Margit, who immigrated 
in 1843 with a family of nine children, of whom Thor 
was the oldest. We have spoken of their coming on 
page 235. Among the other children the sons, Gjer- 
mund, Jens, Jorgen, and Kittel, and daughters, 
Guro, Aase, Emelie and Kristense, also moved to 
the settlement in 1845. Both Ole Kaasa and his wife 
died of cholera in 1854; Jorgen Kaasa settled in 
Winneshiek County in 1852, while Thor Kaasa 
moved to Filmore County, Minnesota; Jens located 
permanently in Chicago. 

In 1844 there came five persons from Siljord, 
Norway, namely Bjorn Brekketo ^'^^ and wife Guro, 

278 Knut Brekketo, a son of Bjorn Brekketo, is living at Capron 
at present. 



LONG PRAIRIE, ILLINOIS 273 

her brothers Jens and Steinar, and Johannes Kleiva. 
Bjorn Brekketo died early and the widow married 
Ole Oreflaat. Not many more immigrants from Tel- 
emarken located at Capron. In 1844-45 natives of 
Sogn took possession of Long Prairie, and the set- 
tlement has ever since remained preeminently a 
Sogning settlement. 

We have observed above that of those who came 
from Sogn on the ship Juno in 1844, Anfin Seim and 
family did not locate in Koshkonong, but went to 
Boone County, Illinois; they were the only ones of 
Juno's passengers to settle in Illinois. On the other 
hand a considerable number of those who came on 
Kong Sverre and Albion located at Long Prairie. 
Among them were the following who came with the 
Albion: Ole J. Aavri, wife Britha and daughter 
Inga and sons Johans and Andres. ^^^ Ivar S. Ris- 
lauv and wife Eli, a daughter of Ole Aavri; Lars 
Johnson Haave, wife Randi, daughter Britha, and 
two sons Joe (John) and Ole; Andrew Olson Stad- 
hem (Staim), wife Sigrid, two sons and four daugh- 
ters, Olina, Britha, Aase, and Inga; Ole Stadhem and 
family; Ivar I. Haave, wife Barbro and sons Inge- 
brigt and Elling ; Endre H. Numedal and wife Helga, 
daughter of Ivar Haave; Ole Berdahl and family; 
Ingebrigt N. Vange, wife Britha, and three daugh- 
ters, and Ole Vange. 

With the Sverre came : Anders H. Numedal and 
wife Aagot, Ole Tistele, Ole 0. Tenold and wife 

279 Andres Aavri soon after returned to Norway. 



274 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Sigri, Ole P. Tenold, Ole J. Orvedal, wife Ragnilda, 
and three daughters, 2^° Lars 0. Folie, Joe Folie, who 
died of cholera in Chicago, Ivar Folie, Lars Jensen 
Haave, with family and Ingebrigt J. Fuglegja^rdet. 
Besides these there were on both ships a number of 
young unmarried men and women whose passage 
was paid for by Lars Johnson Haave and Joe Folie, 
who may perhaps be regarded as the leaders of this 
party. Most of those named were men of means, 
and some of them were owners of valuable estates 
which were of course sold and converted into cash 
upon emigrating to America. Albion took eight 
weeks for the voyage. Kong Sverre took twelve. 
The former arrived in New York about July 25th. 

From New York they took the usual inland route 
to Chicago, their destination being Wiota. But at 
Belvidere in Boone County, they met Thor Olson 
Kaasa, who advised them strongly against going to 
Wiota, which, he said, was two hundred miles from 
a market. La Fayette County was moreover noth- 
ing but hills, and he gave such an unfavorable des- 
cription of that locality, that the immigrants decided 
to accept his suggestion and go to Long Prairie, 
where they were told there was plenty of level and 
fertile land only seventy miles from Chicago. A few 
were deputed to wait at Belvidere for those who 
were coming on Kong Sverre, and inform them of 
the change in plans ; the rest accompanied Kaasa to 

280 One of whom married Ole Tenold ; Ihey moved to CaJmar, 
Iowa. The Orvedal family all moved to Winneshiek County in the 
fifties. 



LONG PRAIRIE, ILLINOIS 275 

Boone County, "^^ where also soon after the second 
party came. Thus by the autumn of 1844 the settle- 
ment numbered about one hundred individuals. '^" 

In the year 1845 about fifty persons settled 
near Capron. It has already been observed that the 
Kaasa family moved out there that year from Chi- 
cago. ^^^ Others came directly from Sogn, Norway, 
the recruiting region being Vik Parish exclusively. 
In that year three ships left Bergen again with im- 
migrants principally from Sogn, especially Aurland 
and Vik. Those who came from Aurland went to 
Koshkonong, as also many of those who came from 
Vik. One of these ships was Albion, Captain Brock, 
the passengers of which went, most of them, to Long 
Prairie. 

Relative to the voyage of Albion, Elim Elling- 
son of Capron, who was on this ship, tells me the 
following incident which occurred in mid-ocean. 

"One day a boat carrying seven or eight men, rather 
ugly in appearance, evidently Spanish pirates, approached 
us from the west, and their leader demanded to speak with 
the captain. They said they came from the New Found- 
land coast and wanted to send some letters back. There- 
upon they veered about and rowed back to their ship 
which \ny some distance to the west, put out nine boats 
with a large number of men and rowed back toward our 
ship. The captain, suspecting their purpose and realizing 



281 Anfin Seim, who liad come on Juno, was in Chicago when 
they came there; he joined them there when they started for Wiota. 

282 Some of them moved away a few years later as had already 
been indicated in the notes on the preceding pages. 

283 The family numbered ten persons. 



276 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

that we would be helpless before an attack of pirates, 
turned the ship around and sailed back for one whole day 
and night. In the meantime a considerable tumult arose 
on board, axes and guns being gotten in readiness and 
many carried up stones from the ballast. We succeeded, 
however, in escaping, and, after sailing a day and a night, 
we turned back and arrived safely in New York. Here 
we learned that recently a ship had arrived at port, the 
masts of which had been entirely destroyed by guns from 
a pirate attack." 

Mr. Ellingson in telling this, added that it is 
doubtful what fate might have awaited them, had not 
the captain promptly turned the ship about and suc- 
ceeded in escaping what most certainly would have 
been a similar attack. 

Among those who came on that ship at the same 
time, and who located at Capron, were: Johans 
Dahle from Voss, his wife, Ingebjor, and son, Ole ; ^^^ 
Lasse Ellingson Aase (b. 1808), wife Gjori Eavsdal 
and five children, Eagnild, ^^^ Elling (Elim), (b. 
1835), Nils, Endre and Britha; Andres E. Aase, wife 
and two sons ; ^^^ Anders 0. Torvold, Johannes 
Lie (now living in Goodhue County, Minnesota), and 
Johanna Stadhem. John Benson of Capron tells 
me that his grandmother, Martha Numedal, a widow, 



284 A son Andres Dahle was not in the ship, says Elim Ellingson, 
and probably did not come therefore until the next year. 

285 Who married Sjur olman, who also came in 1844 and settled 
in Cottage Grove Township, Dane County. 

286 Andres Aase and family soon after moved to Dane County, 
Wisconsin, and settled near Cambridge; they finally located perma- 
nently in 'Winneshiek County, Iowa. 



LONG PRAIRIE, ILLINOIS 277 

came there in 1845 or 1846, and also the following: 
Joe Sande, who was married to a Miss Aase, Edlend 
Myrkeskog, wife Eli and daughter Ingebjor, ^^^ and 
Ole Myrkeskog, who is living at Capron yet at the 
age of eighty. 

The Long Prairie Settlement continued to grow 
for a decade. Space does not, however, permit 
printing here the complete list of later arrivals, kind- 
ly supplied me by Elim Ellingson and John Ben- 
son.-^^ We shall now speak briefly of the growth 
of the old settlement of Muskego. 



287 Edlend Myrkeskog died about 1850, and the widow later 
moved to Iowa. 

288 Mr. Benson came there in 1851. 



CHAPTEE XXXIII 

The Growth of the Racine County (Muskego) Settle- 
ment, 1843-1847. Personal Notes. 

In Chapter XV we discussed briefly immigration 
to Racine County in 1841-1842. The period of larg- 
est growth of the settlement was between 1842 and 
1847 ; an especially large party came in 1843. After 
1847 the arrivals that became permanent residents 
were few and scattered. In the early fall of 1842 
there arrived at one time a party of forty persons. 
They had embarked at Langesund about May 30th, 
were over eleven weeks on the ocean, arriving in 
New York August 16th. Here they met Elling Eiel- 
son, who accompanied them to Albany; three weeks 
later they landed in Milwaukee. Among others 
there were the following persons : Hermo Nilsen 
Tufte and family from Aal in Hallingdal, Johan 
Landsverk and family from Tuddal, Telemarken, 
Sondre N. Maaren and wife and his brothers Ostein 
and Nils from Tin, Osten G. Meland also from Tin, 
Tostein E. Cleven and Aanund Bjaan (Bjoin) and 
family who were the first to emigrate from Siljord. 
Of these several remained only temporarily; thus 
Anders Dahlen went to Winnebago County, Wiscon- 
sin, about 1848, in company with Ole Myhre, an immi- 
grant of the year 1843. Kjittel Busness, who was a 
brother to the said Ole Myhre 's wife, also remained 



RACINE COUNTY SETTLEMENT 279 

in Racine County only a few years, then he went to 
Stoughton, Dane County. 

Sondre Maaren settled on section 34, Town of 
Norway, where he and his wife lived in a dug-out 
for a time; later, selling out to a Mr. Sawyer, they 
moved to Jefferson Prairie and ultimately to Cresco, 
Iowa. Aanund Bjoin died in 1847 ; the son Halvor, 
then eighteen years old, walked to Koshkonong with 
the view of selecting land and settling there, and the 
rest of the family moved there that same year. 
Johan Landsverk, who was a brother of Ole Lands- 
verk, an immigrant of 1838, settled on Yorkville 
Prairie and remained there till 1854, when he moved 
to Sande in Chickasaw County, Iowa, where he lived 
till his death. A son, Peder J. Landsverk, born 
1840, occupied the homestead later ; he died in Janu- 
ary, 1908. Hermo Nilson Tufte and family located 
on section 31 in Ra^nnond Township; here he lived 
till his death. 

As has been said, Tufte came from Aal Parish, 
Hallingdal, and was not only the first emigrant to 
America from Aal, but it seems, also the first from 
the Valley of Hallingdal. The Tufte farm lay in 
the extreme north of the valley close up under the 
mountains ; the region is extremely cold, much of it 
covered by snow the whole year round. The family 
was extremely poor; of a pious nature and fervid 
adherents of Hans Nilsen Hauge. Besides the 
father and mother there was a son, Nils, and a 
daughter, Sigrid. The latter, in whom the piety of 



280 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

the mother had found strong expression, was attract- 
ed to the young lay preacher, Eielson, and in July 
the next year became his wife. The son. Nils, mar- 
ried in 1865 a daughter of Ole Sanderson in Perry 
Township, Dane County, and lived on the old home- 
stead until he died about 1901. The daughter, Julia, 
married Thomas Adland of North Cape, Racine 
County, and another daughter, Betsey, married 0. B. 
Dahle of Perry, Dane County. Hermo Nilson and 
his wife both died in the latter part of the sixties. 

Three different parties of immigrants, nearly 
all from Telemarken, came to Racine County in 1843. 
One, the so-called Wigeland party, left Skien early 
in the spring by ship commanded by Captain Bloom, 
sailing to Havre, France. The second party, going 
about the same time, sailed out from Skien by the 
Olius, Captain Bjornson, also going to Havre. Of 
the third party we shall speak below. 

At Havre those in the first party seem to have 
engaged passage on an American ship Argo, a five- 
masted sailing vessel loaded with Swedish iron bound 
for New York. AVliile Olius was laid up for repairs, 
the American captain began cutting prices, offering 
at last to take the new arrivals to New York for nine 
five-franc pieces each (or about $8). Many did not 
dare to take passage on the Argo, fearing that some 
trick was being played on them, but most of them 
went. Argo proved a good sailer, reaching New 
York four weeks ahead of Olius. There were, how- 
ever, long delays in New York and Buffalo, so that 



RACINE COUNTY SETTLEMENT 281 

the immigrants did not reach Milwaukee before Aug- 
ust 15th. Among those who came on the Argo were : 
Arentz Wigeland and wife Gunild, his aged father 
Andrew Wigeland, and his brothers George and 
Andrew, and two sisters ; Halvor Pederson Haugholt, 
with wife Tone and four sons and two daughters, 
Gunild and Ingeborg ; Ole Overson Haukom and fam- 
ily, eleven in all ; Anders Jacobson Eonningen, wife 
Kjersti and three sons;^^^ Jens Hundkjilen and 
Anders Smekaasa; Amund S. Sotholt, his brother, 
Soren S. Sotholt, Sven S. Klomset; Lars Tinder- 
holt; Nils H. Narmn, Halvor Nisson, John Maaren, 
Nils Rue, John Kossin, John Husevold, all with fam- 
ilies ; Osten Ingusland, John Husevold, Hans Tveito, 
Svein Nordgaarden, Gjermon T. Nordgaarden, Ma- 
thias H. Kroken, wife and children, his wife's sister 
Anne and their mother Sissel; Ole 0. Storlie, with 
wife, -^° four sons and two daughters ; Kjittil Hau- 
gan and family ; Gunuld K. Maaren, Gro Grave and 
her mother; Halvor I. Doksrud, wife and two sons, 
Halvor and Ingebret. All these, about one hundred 
in all, were from different parts of Telemarken. Be- 
sides there were sixteen persons from Sastersdalen 
as follows: Tollef Gunnufson Huset, wife Haege 
Olson and six children from Bygland, Augun Berge 
and wife from Vallo, Kjogei Harstad from Vallo, 

289 One of whom, Jacob, now lives in Racine. 

290 It was Mrs. Ole Storlie, who was accidentally shot by Soren 
Bakke, which unfortunate event seems to have been the chief cause 
why Bakke, almost crazed with grief, gave up pioneer life and re- 
turned to Norway. 



282 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Tollef Knudson and wife and three children from 
Holestad Parish, and Tolleif Roisland and Ole Num- 
meland from Vallo, the first emigrants from Saeters- 
dalen to America. All but the last two of these went 
to Muskego. ^^^ 

Arentz Wigeland, born 1812, who may be regard- 
ed as the leader, had sailed for seven years between 
Boston and the West Indies and along the American 
Atlantic coast. Passing the winters in Boston he 
had learned the English language, and in 1842 re- 
turned to his home in Bamle, Norway, to bring his 
family to America. He became the chief promoter 
of the considerable immigration from Lower Tele- 
marken that year. Wigeland settled in Yorkville 
Township. In 1844 he married Gunild Pederson ; he 
died in 1862. The daughter Maren (b. 1845) mar- 
ried John W. Johnson in 1865. Mrs. Wigeland died 
in Racine in 1897. Haugholt (b. 1799) was from 
Saude Parish in Lower Telemarken. He settled on 
section 18 in the Town of Rajmiond ; there he died in 
1882, his wife ^92 died in 1876, aged 79 years. Their 
oldest son Ole, who was drowned in the fifties in the 
Norway marshes, was the first person buried in the 
Yorkville Cemetery. 

Nels Narum was from Stathelle in Bamle Par- 
ish; he settled in Norway Township on section 20. 
Both he and his wife died in 1887, about eighty-seven 
years old. Hans Tveito (Twito) settled in the part 



291 Eoisland and Vigeland settled at Pine Lake. 

292 She was Gunild Wigeland ; they were married in 1844. 



RACINE COUNTY SETTLEMENT 283 

of the settlement that hiy in Waukesha County; he 
moved to Houston County, Minnesota, in 1855 and in 
1866 to Filmore County; Halvor Nissen who was 
from Bamle, also settled in Waukesha County. Ole 
Overson was from Hviteseid Parish; when they 
came to Norway they lived for some time with John 
Dale (who had come from Norway in 1837 with Mons 
K. Aadland and Ole Rynning). In 1845 he preempt- 
ed land in section 34, where his son Frank Overson 
lived until quite recently. 

Our third party of emigrants were from Upper 
Telemarken, mostly from Siljord Parish. They 
came on the ship Vinterflid. "^^ Among those in the 
party were: Knud S. Kvistrud and Kari Berge 
from Tin, Egil 0. Cleven and family, and a cousin 
Knut Haugan, wife and two daughters from Lange- 
lev; Bjorn Stoudal, Ole 0. Hedejord -^^ and wife Liv, 
three daughters, Esther, Ida and Etta, and two sons, 
Ole and Edward; Torbjorn G. Vik and family, who 
later moved to Koshkonong; Aanund Drotning who 
also went to Koshkonng that same year ; "^^ Aase 



293 Many of the facts relative to this party were gathered on a 
visit at the home of Mrs. Ingeborg Roswall, Whitewater, Wisconsin, 
August 12, 1908; Mrs. Roswall does not remember the name of the 
Captain of the ship. 

294 Ole Hedejord died on Koshkonong; Liv is still living, with 
her grandchildren on the old homestead, near Waterford, in the Town 
of Yorkville. 

295 Edwin Drotning of Stoughton tells me that his father Anon 
remained a while in Milwaukee before going to Koshkonong, where 
ho located, as we know in 1844. 



284 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

and Ingeborg Olson ^^^ from Mandal, Telemarken. 
John Homme from Siljord, father of Eeverend G. 
Homme, founder of the Indian School at Wittenberg, 
Wisconsin, also came at the same time, as also Ole 
Myren and wife Bergit, and Torgrim Busness and 
wife Anne from Tin, who moved to Springfield 
Township, Winneshiek County, Iowa, in 1851. 

That year also Ole Heg, son of Even Heg and a 
brother of Colonel Hans C. Heg, ^^'' came and settled 
in Racine County, as also Knud Langeland from 
Samnanger, who in 1866 became the first editor of 
Skandinaven founded that year by John Anderson 
in Chicago. Knud Langeland lived at first in Muske- 
go, later at North Cape, Racine County. In 1849 he 
married Anna Hatlestad (bom in Skjold Parish, 
Ryfylke, in 1830), whose parents Jens 0. Hatlestad 
and wife Anne had immigrated in 1846, and settled 
in the Town of Norway. Knud Langeland was also 
the first editor of Amerika, which began publication 
in Chicago in 1884. During the last years of his life 
Langeland lived in North Cape and in Milwaukee, 
where he died in 1888 ; his wife died in 1908, at the 



296 These two sisters married Tostein and GuUeik Cleven in 1844. 
Tostein and Aase Cleven lived in Yorkville till 1866, when they moved 
to Pleasant Spring, Dane County, Wisconsin. Tostein died in 1893, 
Aase in 1905, leaving four daughters and three sons: Mrs. Astri 
Drotning, Mrs. Ed. Drotning, both of Stoughton, Wisconsin, Mrs, 
Anna Howe, Mrs. Edwin Bjoin, Kice Lake, Wisconsin, Ed., Thomas, 
and Henry. Thomas Cleven occupies the farm, 

297 Ole Heg is still living in Burlington, Racine County, Wiscon- 
sin. 



RACINE COUNTY SETTLEMENT 285 

home of her son, Dr. Peter Langeland with whom 
she had lived since her husband's death. '^^ 

There came three persons from Voss to Racine 
County in 1843, namely, Knut S. Skjerve (b. 1808), 
and wife Kari, and his unmarried sister, Brita Sel- 
heim. Skjerve located in Norway, Racine County, 
in the neighborhood of Nils Johnson. In 1847 
Skjerve sold his land to Knut K. Aaretuen from 
Sogn and went to Jefferson Prairie, Boone County, 
Illinois, where he bought a farm and lived till his 
death in 1892 ; his wife died there in 1873. 

During 1844-1846 the increase in immigration 
was constant, though not large. In 1847 there ar- 
rived a considerable number. The scattered acces- 
sions of these years represent as widely removed 
parishes as Skien, La?rdal in Sogn, and Namsos in 
Trondhjem. The following is a partial list: 1844, 
John Larson and Peter Jacobson and family from 
Stathelle, Bamle, Johannes J. Quala from near Sta- 
vanger; Thormod S. Flattre with wife Ingeborg (Ly- 
dahl) ^^^ and children from Voss, who settled in Nor- 
way Township, Halvor 0. Skare and wife Margrete 
and two children from Lower Telemarken, who lo- 
cated in Norway Township in 1845 ; ^°° John I. Berge 
and wife Julia, and Hans H. Bakke and wife Inge- 



298 The other children are James, Charles, and Frank Langeland, 
and Mrs. Harry Brimble of Chicago, and Leroy Langeland, who is 
news editor of the Eveimig Wisconsin, Milwaukee. 

299 Thomas F. Thompson, who died in Leland, Illinois, in 1908, 
was their son. 

300 He moved to Winchester, Wisconsin, in 1854. 



286 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

borg, who moved to Spring Grove in 1854, and Peder 
Torgerson and wife Anne and five children from 
Kragero.^"^ In 1846: Jens 0. Hatlestad and wife 
(see above page 284) parents of Eev. 0. J. Hatlestad, 
pioneer publisher, minister, and author of Histori- 
ske Middelelser om den norske Augustana-Synode, 
Decorah, Iowa, 1877; Elling Spillom, wife Maren 
and three sons, Ole, Hendrik, and Mikkel and one 
daughter ; Ole Homstad and Mathias Homstad, both 
with families, from Namsos in Trondhjem Diocese -/^^ 
they settled in Raymond Township; Halvor and 
Ingebret Roswald ^^^ from Gjerpen. Knudt K. 
Hedle, wife and sons Mathias, Peter, and daugh- 
ter Betsy from Lferdal, Sogn; Tyke Hendrikson 
Lokken and wife Anne from Gjei*pen, who bought 
the Aslak Aas farm in Norway Township; they 
had four children, Hans, Ole, Peter and Maria.^""* 
In 1847: Peter M. Andsion from Namsos, with 



301 Torgerson removed to Wheeler Prairie, Dane County, in 1846. 
One of the children Anne Tomine, married Ole C. Erikson in 1854 and 
they moved to Lake Mills, Jefferson County. In the spring of 1867 
they moved to Stoughton, Wisconsin, where Erikson was one of the 
first promoters of the Stoughton Wagon Company. Mrs. Erikson is 
still living in Stoughton. 

302 They were the first families to emigrate from Trondhjem. 

303 Ingebret Eoswald married Ingeborg Cleven in 1854, and they 
then settled in Dodge County. The widow is now living in White- 
water, Wisconsin. 

304 Hans died in 1856, Ole died in Milwaukee in 1901. Peter 
Hendrikson graduated from Beloit College, held a chair in Modern 
Languages there for about ten years, was later editor of Skandinaven 
and Principal of Albion Academy, Albion, Wisconsin. Is now en- 
gaged in farming in the State of Maine. 



RACINE COUNTY SETTLEMENT 287 

wife and four children (three daughters and a son) ; 
they settled in Norway Township. 

In this year Captain Hans Friis from Farsund, 
Agder, Norway, settled in Muskego. Friis was a 
sailor with Enigheden in 1837 (see above page 96), 
and between 1837 and 1847 had made nine journeys 
to America. After settling in Muskego he contin- 
ued for many years sailing on the Great Lakes. In 
1848 the following came to Muskego: George J. 
Bjorgaas from Houg, Voss, ^°^ Tollef 0. Oien from 
Tonset, Osterdalen (removed to Kewanee County in 
1855), and J. H. Skarie, from Hadeland, who locat- 
ed in Town of Norway. This year also brought to 
Muskego the pioneer minister Hans Andreas Stub 
(b. 1822), who had that spring received and accept- 
ed the call to the Muskego church. Knut and Anna 
Aaretuen from Aurland, Sogn, also appear among 
the number; they bought the farm of Knut S. 
Skjerve in Norway Township. In 1854 they moved 
to Winneshiek County, Iowa, and about 1860 to Gil- 
more County, Minnesota. John T. and Christoffer 
Olson from Romskogen in Rodenaes, Halvor ''Mo- 
dum" from Modum, Norway, and Guro Wait and son 
Reuben from Osterdalen, Norway, all came in 1848. 

This brief outline of the growth of the settle- 
ment represents fairly completely the increase by 
immigration from Norway between 1842 and 1850. 
The wave of migration had long ago moved west- 



30S His parents with family of ten came in 1849. George Bjor- 
gaas moved to Adams County, in 1849, where he has lived since. 



288 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ward ; it had already gone beyond Koshkonong also. 
It was northern and western Dane County and 
southern Columbia County that were now the Mecca 
of immigrants. In the meantime some small settle- 
ments in Walworth and Jefferson Counties had al- 
ready been founded. We shall, therefore, briefly 
discuss these now. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

The Heart Prairie Settlement in Walworth County, 
Wisconsin. Skoponong. Pine Lake. 

Walworth County forms one of the southern 
tier of counties in Wisconsin, being situated between 
Rock on the west and Kenosha and Racine on the 
east; to the north lies Jefferson County. There are 
four Norwegian settlements in the county, as fol- 
lows : (1) in the southern part of the Town of White- 
water and the northern part of the Town of Rich- 
mond lies the Heart Prairie Settlement, taking its 
name from the beautiful little prairie directly east 
of it ; (2) about four miles east of the city of AVliite- 
water lies Skoponong, partly in Wliitewater Town- 
sliip and extending north into Jefferson County as 
far as Palmyra; (3) in the city of Wliitewater there 
is a considerable Norwegian colony, and (4) about 
six miles southeast of Heart Prairie lies the Sugar 
Creek Settlement, extending from about five miles 
north of Delavan to about three miles northeast of 
Elk Horn, the county seat of Walworth County. It 
is the first of these settlements that we shall discuss 
in this chapter. 

The first Norwegian settlers at Heart Prairie 
were 01 e A. Sogal and wife Kari, who, with their 
four children Anne, Andrea, Karen, and Johanne, 
came in 1842 and located four miles and a half 



290 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

southeast of the city of Whitewater. They lived 
there only a few years, however, then moved to Wau- 
toma, Waushara County, in Central Wisconsin. The 
next settler was Ole's brother, Hans A. Mil ebon, who 
with his wife Kari came in 1843, and settled about 
a mile north of his brother's place; they had one 
daughter, Mary Ann, who was about three years old 
when they came, and who is still living near Wliite- 
water. 

During the year 1844 a number of families ar- 
rived from Norway and settled at Heart Prairie. 
They were as follows : Hans Arveson Vale and wife 
Aaste (Esther), with children Arve (or Harvey) and 
Isak. Mr. Arveson bought his first eighty acres at 
government price of $1.25 per acre, and built his log 
house in the fall of 1844. In this log cabin many a 
Norwegian immigrant found a temporary home upon 
his first arrival in Wisconsin in the early days of 
the settlement. Here Mr. Arveson lived, cultivating 
his own farm, until his death in 1873 at the age of 
sixty-one; the widow died in June, 1900, at the age 
of eighty-six. Hans Thompson and wife Marie also 
came in 1844; they had three children, Thomas, 
Karen and Ann. He bought land adjoining Arve- 
son 's farm, lived the first winter in a dug-out. But 
the next spring ''when the snakes began to come 
in," writes my informant, they moved to the Arve- 
son 's where they lived till they got their log-house 
built. 

Andres J. Skipnes and his wife Aaste also came 
at the time ; they settled near Ole Arveson, but lived 



HEART PRAIRIE SETTLEMENT 291 

there onlj- a short time, then moved to a farm near 
Stoughton, Wisconsin. Ole J. Vale and wife Anne 
likewise came in the same party, but they went to 
Sugar Creek, where a son, John, and a daughter, 
Annie Torine, had loca,ted the year before.^^^ An- 
other arrival at this time was Peder H. Swerge, and 
Ole Tolvson Gronsteen and wife Kari and three chil- 
dren, Tosten Olson, a carpenter, and wife Aaste^ 
Karine, a daughter of Halvor Anderson, came in 
1844. Tosten built most of the log-cabins that were 
erected in the settlement for a number of years. His 
wife died soon after coming to America, and Tosten 
died in the Civil War. Finally the accessions of 1844 
included also the following persons: Gunder H. 
Lunde, Anne Kosa, Ole 0. Huset and family, John C. 
Opsal, and Halvor Huset. The latter two remained 
only a short time, then went west; Ole 0. Huset 
located on Koshkonong.^^'' 

All the above thirty-one persons who emigrated 
in 1844 were from the vicinity of Skien in Holden, 
and all came on the same ship, namely, Salvator, 
Captain Johan Gasman. They were nine weeks on 

306 The rest of their children who came with them were Aaste, a 
widow, Andrea, Anders, and Anne Christine. 

Thomas Thompson married Mary Ann, daughter of Christen 
Mason. They lived on the Thompson homestead till their death ; 
Thomas died in 1869, his wife in 1871. They had six children, of 
whom Hans, the oldest, lives at Forest City, Iowa. Karen Thompson, 
oldest daughter of Hans Thompson, married .Tens Skipnes (better 
known as John A. Johnson of the firm, Fuller and Johnson, Madison, 
Wisconsin), and with him lived near Stoughton, Wisconsin, where 
she died about four years after their marriage. 

307 See Koshkonong Church Registe"", page 324 lelow. 



292 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

the ocean, landing in New York July 4th ; they came 
by the regular route to Milwaukee, thence they drove 
in lumber wagons to Heart Prairie. 

For the year 1845 the following accessions are 
to be noted: The brothers Nils and Gunder C. Op- 
sal ; Halvor A. Lunde and wife Ann and six children, 
most of them grown up, and another son GuUeik and 
wife Dorothea; Anders J. Bjorndokken; Johans 
Gronsteen with wife Maria and three children. For 
1846 we note the following : Anders Gunderson, John 
Arveson and wife Kjersti and four children ; ■'^^ 
Lukas Ingebretson; Anders G. Bjerva, wife Anne 
and four children : ^°^ Anne, Borte Maria, Karen, and 
Jens, who many years ago moved to Crookston, Min- 
nesota; and John Gronsteen and wife Asberg. All 
those who came during the years 1845-46 were from 
near Skien. 

In 1847 Christen M. Bo, wife Inger and four 
children from Gjerpen came to Heart Prairie ; and in 
1848 came Ole Nilsen from Christiansand. 

In either 1848 or 1849 came Nils, Steen and Ole 
Haatvedt ; Nils moved to Wautoma, and Ole settled 
in Waupaca after living a few years at Heart 
Prairie. In 1850 Hans Hanson, a blacksmith, came 
from Holdon and located there; he worked for a 
time with the George Esterly Harvesting Machine 

308 The mother and one child died that same fall. 

309 She was a widow when he married her. The children of the 
second marriage were: Gunder, Christen (Whitewater), Esther (who 
was Mrs. Chas. Sobye, Stoughton, Wisconsin, but now dead). Anders 
Bjerva and wife died many years ago. 



HEART PRAIRIE SETTLEMENT 293 

Co., then bought a farm, which he occupied till his 
death iu 1893. Another blacksmith by the name of 
Claus Hanson came at the same time ; worked at his 
trade for a while in Whitewater then went to Mich- 
igan, married and came back and settled in Milwau- 
kee, where he is still living. In 1851 Arve Gunder- 
son Vale emigrated ; his son Hans Vale had come in 
1844; Arve Vale lived only a week after arriving. 
With him came Gunder H. Vala and wife Kersti 
and seven children ; they moved to Vermillion, South 
Dakota, a few years later, all except the oldest son 
Halvor, who is living at Rio, Wisconsin. In that 
year (1851) came also Christopher Steenson Haa- 
tvedt and his two brothers-in-law, Peter Kystelson 
Haatvedt and Christen J. Tveit, while in 1852 came 
Jorgen A. Nil son Vibito and wife Karen Kristine, 
nee Hanson, and six children. Jorgen Nilson had 
taught parochial school in Norway for twenty-nine 
years and continued to do so here for many years. 

The above is a complete account of all arrivals 
to the settlement from Norway down to the year 
1852; the roster of settlers here given has been 
patiently gathered during several months of re- 
search by Mr. Harvey Arveson ^^° of Whitewater, 
himself the oldest son of the third settler in the com- 
munity, namely Hans Arveson Vale, of whom we 



310 1 acknowledge here with gratitude Mr. Arveson 's valuable 
aid. It is only through such intelligent interest and patient effort 
on the part of the sons of the pioneers themselves, who have con- 
tinued to live in the community, that such reliable facts can be 
secured. 



294 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

have spoken above. I have followed his manuscript 
closely, omitting only certain facts of family and 
personal history. Mr. Arveson speaks briefly of the 
trying summer and fall of 1846 when for a time sick- 
ness and death seemed to threaten to exterminate 
the settlers of Heart Prairie. I will quote from his 
own account of the condition; speaking of John 
Gronsteen, who came in 1846 and died that same fall, 
he continues: 

There was so much sickness here at that time that 
there was hardly any one well enough to bury those that 
died; and well can I remember that the men had to come 
do\vn to our house and rest before they could finish the 
grave, and well can I remember that the cow stood outside 
bellowing to be milked and no one able to milk her; every- 
body was thirsty as all had fever and ague and had to go a 
mile for water before we got to the well, and sometimes 
no one able to go after it, I am sure a great many died 
for want of care, as there was none that understood the 
English language and did not understand how to take their 
medicine. Those were hard times, and to many this ac- 
count may sound incredible; nevertheless, it is true and 
I could write volumes and tell true incidents of the trials 
and hardships that the old pioneers had to endure. 

AVhitewater city received no Norwegian settlers 
until in the fifties, therefore an account of their 
coming falls outside the scope of our discussion. 
Of the old Skoponong Settlement I am able to give 
only a few general facts. The first settlers came in 
1843-44 ; they were : Kittil Jordgrev, Hans Bukaasa, 
and Bjorn Lien from Upper Telemarken, Hans and 
Harald Nordbo from Flaa, Hallingdal, Ole Lia from 



HEART PRAIRIE SETTLEMENT 295 

Hiterdal, Halvor Valkaasa from Sauland, Lars 
Johnson Lee, Sjur Hydle, Knut T. Rio, and Tollef 
Grane from Voss, and Anon Dalos ; several of these 
had families. Lars Lee and wife Britha came to 
Muskego in the summer of 1843 and to Skoponong 
early in the fall, and were therefore among the very 
earliest in that locality. They lived there until 
1861, when they located at Spring Prairie, Town of 
Leeds, Columbia County. ■'^^ In his history of the 
Skoponong Congregation (founded in 1844), C. M. 
Mason, Secretary of the congregation, names also 
the following among the earliest members of the 
church: Halvor Mathison (in whose house the 
church was organized in 1844), Styrk Erikson, Knud 
Dokstad, Nils Herre, Ole Sjurson, Simon Sakrison, 
Jacob Kaasne, Halvor Glenna, Mathias Baura, 
Bjom Hefte, Sjur Flittre, Lars Klove, Mathias Lia 
and Even Gulseth. 

In 1846 Sj'^^er 0. Haaland, wife and nine child- 
ren, Hadle Evenson and wife Anne J. Fjosne, and 
Tostein H. and Osmond 0. Hogstul came to Skopon- 
ong, the latter two from Tuddal in Telemarken ; the 
former were from Etne Parish in Sondhordland. 
Bjorn Holland of Hollandale, Wisconsin, who is a 
son of Syver Haaland,^^^ writes me that they came on 
the ship Kong Sverre from Bergen. ^^^ In Ulvestad's 
Nordmaendene i Amerika, page 56, appears an ac- 



311 Lars Lee died in 1883, his wife in 1905. Dr. Lewis Johnson 
Lee of De Forest, Wisconsin, is their son. 

312 The family changed the name to Holland in this country. 

313 Letter of May 5, 1905. 



^96 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

count of their first few weeks in the settlement and 
of S. Haaland's sickness and death. The Hogstul 
party came in a brig by the name of Washington, 
which carried iron from Tvedestrand, commanded 
by a Norwegian captain by the name of Simon Cook. 
He says: 

"In Milwaukee, there were only a few stores at the 
time. "We drove with oxen and a wagon to the so-called 
Skoponong Settlement near Whitewater. AVhen we came 
there nearly all the settlers lay ill with ague, the condition 
was wretched. We immediately began to rid and break 
some land and after a while we got so far that we could 
raise some wheat. But we had to haul it fifty miles to 
Milwaukee with oxen; there we got 25 cents per bushel. 
. . . wages was usually 25 cents a day in the spring and 
fall; in the haying it was 50 cents. But there was little 
work to get. Like other settlers my parents were poor. 
My mother made baskets from withes; these she then car- 
ried on her back about the prairie and sold them to Amer- 
icans, getting in return for them flour, pork and garments, 
in order that we should not suffer distress. 

Hadle Evenson moved to Perry, Wisconsin, in 
1854, where Mrs. Evenson died in 1861. The oldest 
son Edwin Hadley, enlisting in Co. E, 15th Wiscon- 
sin, was killed at the Battle of New Hope Church, 
Georgia, in May, 1864. In 1875 Mr. Evenson settled 
at Slater, Story County, Iowa. Peter Hadley, Treas- 
urer of Webster County, is the only surviving son. 

Among the early settlers at Skoponong was Mrs. 
Ingeborg Nelson who came from Evanger, Voss, in 
1849. She left Skoponong a few years later, settling 
permanently at Deerfield, Dane County, in 1853, 



HEART PRAIRIE SETTLEMENT 297 

where she is still living at the age of ninety-five. 
Mrs. Nelson is the mother of Senator Knute Nelson 
of Minnesota, who was born in Norway in 1843. 
Knute Nelson was educated at Albion Academy, Al- 
bion, Wisconsin, and removed to Alexandria, Minne- 
sota in 1871. He was Governor of Minnesota dur- 
ing 1892-1895. In the latter year he was elected U. 
S. Senator and has been reelected twice since, serv- 
ing now his third term. 

I shall mention one more settler, namely Tor- 
stein Rio, ^^"^ born at Vossevangen in 1835, who, with 
his wife Ingeborg (Bershaugen) and family came to 
America in 1849 on the ship Henrik Wergeland and 
located at Skoponong. A brother whose name also 
was Torstein came at the same time, and the family 
included a son Nels (Thompson), who is living at 
Madison, Wisconsin, having moved there in 1860. ^^^ 
Torstein Rio died at Skoponong in 1869, his wife 
died in Madison in 1876. 

At Pine Lake and Nashota in northwestern 
Wausheka County a considerable number of Nor- 
wegians lived among the forties and fifties, since 
which the settlement has dwindled very much. ^^^ At 
Pine Lake the first Swedish settlement founded in 
America in the last century had been established 
in 1841 by Gustav Unonius.'^'^ In 1843 about fifty 

314 Father of Knut Eio. 

315 In 1880 Nels Thompson became a member of the well known 
firm of clothiers, Boley, Hinrichs and Thompson, later Hinricha and 
Thompson. 

316 Or rather also in part Americanized. 

317 1 have discussed this in my Chapters on Scandanavian Immi- 
gration (1906), pages 83-85. 



298 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Norwegian families located at Pine Lake, according 
to Unonius Minnen, 1862, page 3. Unonius mentions 
especially a Captain Hans Gasman as the principal 
figure there. Gasman had a large family of sons 
and daughters, and the name is a well known one 
among the early pioneers of Racine, Waukesha, and 
Dodge Counties. ^^^ Other members of the family 
were Charles, Peter and Captain Johan Gasman, 
who commanded the Salvator, plying between Skien 
and New York. This very ship brought a number 
who located at Pine Lake, among them Halvor Sal- 
veson from Gjerpen.^^^ 

Among the fifty families who came to Pine Lake 
in 1843 I may name Engelbret Salveson from Gjer- 
pen, Erik Helgeson, Hans Roe, Christen Puttekaasa, 
Halvor Rosholt, Jacob Rosholt, Peter Naes from near 
Skien and Gjerpen, Ellef Bjornson and Halvor Hal- 
vorson from Saude, Telemarken, and Tollef Waller 
from Eidanger in Lower Telemarken, Christopher 
Aamodt and Hans Uhlen from Modum, Tolleiv Rois- 
land and Ole Nummeland from Vallo in Saetersdalen 
and Ole Lia from Gausdal.^^° Some of these, as e. g. 
Halvor Halvorson ^^^ located in the extreme north- 

318 Into this county the settlement extended to and about Aship- 
pun and Toland. 

319 Many of those who came with Capt. Gasman this time went 
to Heart Prairie. 

320 Holand Be norslce Settlementers Eistorie, page 170, to which 
I am indebted chiefly for this roll of immigrants to Nashota, etc., in 
1843. 

321 Halvorson died in the spring of 1908 as the last of the orig- 
inal Norwegian settlers at Toland; he was born in 1818, married in 
1848 Kirsten Aandrud, who survives him. 



HEART PRAIRIE SETTLEMENT 299 

ern part of the settlement at Toland, and John Lia 
settled across the Jefferson County line, ^-^ but most 
located in Waukesha County at Hartland or Nashota. 
In subsequent years there arrived constantly 
new settlers from Skien, Sa^tersdal and Gudbrands- 
dalen, but even in the later forties many began to 
go to the counties immediately northwest to Wau- 
paca and Portage counties and elsewhere. In 1850- 
54 these counties, as also Waushara and Winnebago 
counties on the south, received hosts of Norwegian 
settlers, some coming direct from Norway, a large 
number however from Racine and Dane Counties, 
and the Pine Lake region. ^-^ The period of growth 
in this settlement was therefore relatively short, and 
the removals relatively large. The result was that 
the Norwegians came to live more scattered and the 
community soon began to lose its distinctive national 
character. Thus it is significant, that of the ninety 
services held during 1907 in Vor F reisers Kirke at 
Oconomowoc sixty-three were in the English lan- 
guage. ^^'^ But we are here touching upon questions 
which it is not our purpose to discuss in connection 
with the survey of settlement. 

322 Through John Lia 's influence this then came to be the des- 
tination of the earliest emigrants from Gudbrandsdalen between 
1846-49. 

323 Walworth County contributed some of the number; thus Ole 
Sogal, the first Norwegian settler at Heart Prairie, was one of those 
who went to Waushara County. 

324 By way of comparison the number of English services to 
Norwegian as far as statistics are available were in the following 
localities: Morris, 111., 13 of 67, Blue Mounds, Dane Co., Wis., 
of 22; Leland, 111., 14 of 28; Stoughton, Wis., 35 of 80; Long 
Prairie, 7 of 25; Koshkonong, of 75; "Muskego," 41 of 112. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

The Earliest Norwegian Settlers at Sugar Creek, 
Walworth County, Wisconsin. The in- 
flux from Land, Norway, to Wiota 
and Vicinity, 1844-1852 

We have briefly referred to Sugar Creek, Wal- 
worth County, Wisconsin, in chapter XXXIII above. 
This little settlement received its first Norwegian set- 
tlers in 1844 when Ole Vale and wife Anne from Hol- 
den Parish, Skien, located there ; with them came the 
sons John and Anders and the daughters Aasta, 
Anne, Turine, Andrea and Maria. Vale and his 
wife lived in Sugar Creek till their death, and the 
daughters all married and settled there. In the 
same year Ole Kittelson and Nils T. Kvamodden, 
both unmarried and both also from Holden, came to 
the settlement. Ole Kittelson located permanently 
in Sugar Creek, but Nils Kvamodden and wife moved 
to Norway Township, Goodhue County, Minnesota, 
in 1857. There they died years ago, the homestead 
being now occupied by the son Ole. 

Christian L. Vestremo and wife Ingeborg and 
three children, and Gunder K. Naeseth emigrated 
from Gjerpen near Skien, in 1844. Naeseth moved 
to Norway, Minnesota, in 1856 and Vestremo in 1857. 
According to Ole Jacobson of Elk Horn, to whom I 
am indebted for these facts, there were no further 



SETTLERS AT SUGAR CREEK 301 

accessions to the colony before 1847. In that year 
his parents came from Gjerpen, as also Jacob Tor- 
stenson and wife Maren Margrete and three sons 
Ole, Torsten and Jacob, and a daughter, Maria with 
her husband Lars Jensen Teigen and family. With 
them came also Teigen 's mother. Jacob Torstenson 
died in 1861 ; the wddow is still living at the old home. 

Ole Jacobson writes me that his father and 
family left Skien in April by the ship Axel (og) Val- 
borg, Captain Bloom, going first as far as Havre, 
France. There they waited three weeks, then se- 
cured passage with an American ship, the journey 
being very slow. Landing in Boston, they went by 
train to Albany, thence by canal boat to Buffalo, and 
by steamboat via the lakes to Milwaukee, where they 
arrived sometime in August. From Milwaukee they 
thereupon proceeded to Sugar Creek, where they 
located permanently. Ole Jacobson is at present 
living on the farm purchased in 1847. In 1849 Aslak 
Rasmusson Slettene with wife Gunild and eight 
children came from Gjerpen, Norway. ^^^ Grinde- 
melum, with wife, son, and daughter, also came in 
1849, as did Peter J. Gromstulen, wife Svanang and 
five children, and Nils J. Overholt, wife and two 
children. 

There do not seem to have been any further 
accessions of Norwegian immigrants during the 
pioneer days of the Sugar Creek settlement. In the 
sixties quite a number came and located at and 

325 Some of the children have moved away, to Minnesota and 
Washington. 



302 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

about Elk Horn but these do not fall within the 
scope of our survey. 

The original home of immigrants from Land, 
Norway, was Rock Prairie, as we saw above, chapter 
XXIV. From this as their distribution point they 
migrated west and north, aiding in the founding of 
other settlements. As early as 1844 we find one 
pioneer at Wiota from Land, Norway, namely Sj^er 
Johnson Smed (see above page 213). But the influx 
from Land did not begin until 1847. ^-^ In that year 
two families, numbering in all fourteen persons, ar- 
rived via Rock Prairie; they were those of Svend 
Norstelien (wife Karen, and five children) and of 
the widow Kari Lillebask, who had six children. ^^^ 
In 1848 Hovel Tollefsrude, wife Bertha and child- 
ren: Christopher, Hans, Jahannes, Siri, and Lovise 
arrived. Further immigrants of that year were : Jo- 
hannes Brenom, wife Ingeborg and three children; 
Hans Halvorson (Brenna), wife Eli, and children, 
Berte, Halvor and Johannes; Johannes E. Smeds- 
rud, with wife Anne and two sons Engebret and 
Mathias; and Johannes Smehogen (or Smed) with 
wife Engeborg, and two children. 

In 1849 came Torkild Husvaeret, with wife and 
three sons, Gulbrand, Lars and Frederik; Ole Mon- 
son Tollefsrude, wife Karen and three children, and 
Nils Aason, Ovre Hasle and wife Ingeborg, who had 



326 Matthew J. Ingebretson of Gratiot, Wis., who came to Wiota 
with his parents in 1848, has kindly aided me with many of the facts 
on immigration to Wiota in 1847-50. 

327 John Larsen Lillebaek was one of her sons. 



SETTLERS AT SUGAR CREEK 303 

come to Rock Prairie in 1848 (removed to Wiota in 
1848). Hans Lillebaek came in 1850 and about twen- 
ty in all in 1851-52. 

Ole Monson, whom we have mentioned as com- 
ing in 1849, was the builder of the old Norwegian 
church at Wiota, which is still standing ; the present 
larger and more commodious structure stands on 
the wall built by Ole Monson. 

There were not very many from other provinces 
in Norway among those who emigrated to Wiota in 
the late forties. We have spoken of Ingebrigt 
Fuglegj?erdet's coming in 1846 from Long Prairie, 
where he had lived two years; he was from Vik, 
Sogn. 328 

From Vik came Erik I. Haave and wife in 1847, 
while Harald Melland and wife Anne came from 
Telemarken. From Sigdal there came one family 
in 1848; Ellef (Alef) Johnson and wife Anne. The 
latter served in the Civil War, in Company G of the 
Twenty-Second Wisconsin Regiment.^^' In 1872 he 
married Mary Larson,^'"' of Blanchardville, La Fay- 
ette County, where they are now living. 

I may conclude this chapter by saying that Arne 

328 Ingebrigt Johnson removed to Town of Dane, Dane County, 
Wisconsin, in 1851; there he lived till his death in 1893, his wife 
having died in 1890. John J. Johnson, retired farmer, of Lodi, 
Columbia County, Wisconsin, is their son, as is also Joseph Johnson 
of Dane Township in Dane County. 

329 He was only sixteen when he enlisted. 

330 She was a daughter of Ole Larson, who served in the Third 
Regiment, Wisconsin Infantry, in the Civil War. 



304 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Vinje, whose name is so intimately interlinked with 
the history of the community, died in 1903, having 
lived on the old homestead for sixty-two years. Of 
his eight children, three are living : Peter S. Ander- 
son, Newell, Iowa, Daniel K. Anderson and Mrs. 
Martha Brunkow of Woodford, Wisconsin. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

Continued Immigration f>'om Aurland, Sogn, to 

Koshkonong. The Arrival of Settlers from 

Vik Parish, Sogn, in 1845. 

In the year 1845-1846 immigration to Kosh- 
konong from Laurdal, Vinje and Moe Parishes con- 
tinued and a considerable number came from Fles- 
berg. The accessions from Laurdal, Moe, and Hvid- 
eseid for these years record the end of a movement 
that began in 1843. But that which especially char- 
acterized the growth of the Koshkonong Settlement 
in 1845-1846 was the extensive additions through im- 
migrants from Sogn. So extensive, in fact, was the 
influx from Sogn these years as to make their total 
representation on Koshkonong at once exceed that 
from either Voss or Numedal, and equal to about 
half that from Telemarken. These four have ever 
since been the dominant elements in Koshkonong 's 
population. A part of this immigration from Sogn 
was from parishes represented among the arrivals 
of the year before. Such were Botolf J. Grinde, 
Ole N. Steenlijerde and Sjur I. Romoren from Lei- 
kanger, Herman T. Vee, Joseph J. Gjellum and Her- 
mund 0. Offerdal from Laerdal, Anders S. Ovrebo, 
wife Anne and three children from Lyster, Erik L. 
Grov and Anders H. Odegaard and wife Martha 
from Haf slo. 



306 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

But much more significant was the immigration 
from Aurland Parish in 1845-1846, from Sogndal in 
1846, and the new immigration from Vik Parish in 
1845. We shall discuss these three groups in order 
briefly. 

We have noted above, Chapter XXXI, that there 
were several persons from Aurland Parish, Sogn, 
among the immigrants who settled on Koshkonong 
in 1844. I am now in receipt of a letter from Anders 
J. Flaam of Flaam in Aurland, Norway, relative to 
the earliest emigration from Aurland to America. 
His letter, as also that of Reverend E. P. Juul, the 
present Minister of the Parish, shows that the earli- 
est emigrants left there in 1844. I quote in trans- 
lation from Reverend Juul's letter: 

"Those who, according to parochial records here, 
were the first to emigrate to America are the following: 
Iver Hansen Vingum, age twenty-five, unmarried/^^'^ Ole 
Torjussen Flaam, age fifty, wife Anna Botolfsdatter, age 
forty, and children, Ole, thirteen and a half years old, and 
Anders, ten years. Of these, Iver Hansen's certifcate of 
emigration is shown to have been issued March 20, 1844, 
and he to have left the district on April 13th the same 
year. Ole Torjussen 's certificate of emigration was issued 
on the 13th of April, 1844, and his departure took place 
the following day. All therefore emigrated together." 

Reverend Juul thereupon gives a list of those 
who emigrated from Aurland in 1845, and while sev- 

331 The writer's father has always pronounced the name Vangen, 
which also according to Haakon Lie, is the correct form. Iver Van- 
gen settled on Bonnet Prairie, where his son Hans Vangen is still 
living. 



CONTINUED IMMIGRATION 307 

eral of these did not settle on Koshkonong it will 
be of interest to the reader to see this list. I there- 
fore give it complete here: 

"Iq 1845, on the 19th of April the natives of Aurland 
(Aurla^ndinger) left their native village: Torsten Olsen 
Bjelde, (45 years of age) wife, Anna (29), and son, Ole 
(31/2 years) ; Iver Ingebrigtsen Ytreli (32 years) ; Jens 
Botolfsen Bergkvam (23i/> years) ; Jens Torgersen Taariim 
(44I/2 years), wife Ragnhilde Monsdatter (27) and son 
Torger (one year) ; Sjnr Olsen Stundal (19) and sister 
Katrine (30) ; Anna Marie Hansdatter Vangen (281/4) ; 
Erik Johannesen Ytreli (43) and wife Marthe Larsdat- 
ter (48) and children; Brita (21 years), Magnilde (18 
years), Johannes (16 years), Ingeborg (14 years), Lars 
(101/2 years), Haakon (9 years), Anna (7 years), Tomas 
(5 years) ; Johanne Botolsdatter Ytreli (16 years) ; Eilef 
Olson Loven (24 years) ; Mikkel Knutsen Osterbro (22i/o 
years), and wife Martha Gulvsdatter (271/^ years), and 
son Knut (two months) ; Lars Gundersen Gjellum (331/2 
years) and wife Gjertrud, and son Knut (4 years) ; 
Martha Gundersdatter (17 years) ; Josef Johannesen Vin- 
dedal (73 years), and wife Anna Jensdatter; John John- 
sen Frondal (28 years) and wife Magnhilde; Rognald 
Johannesen Knit (19l^ years) ; Simon A. Gjellum (20 
years) ; Peder Monsen Loven (34 years) ; Johanne M. 
Loven (20 years) ; Iver J. Stene (22 years). 

These are the emigrants who first went to America 
from this Parish. 

Aurland Parish, January 25th, 1909. 
E. P. Juul." 

Some of the immigrants mentioned by Reverend 
Juul are still living on Koshkonong. Thus among 



308 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

the children of Erik J. Ytreli (who died in 1892, at 
the age of 90),^^- Johannes (John E. Johnson) is 
still living on the old homestead, two miles east of 
Utica, and his brother Haakon is living there with 
him. ^^^ Simon Gjellum lived two years in Chicago, 
then entered the Mexican War, after which he came 
to Koshkonong. Ivar I. Ytreli ^^"^ had been a school 
teacher and deacon at Systrond, in which capacity 
he continued serving here in this country, at Rock 
Prairie, Rock County, whither he went soon after 
arriving in Wisconsin; he died there about 1875. 



332 The family shortened the name to Lie in this country. 

333 During a visit with him at the John E. Johnson homestead 
last August I had the pleasure of listening to H. Lie's narrative of 
the emigration of this party from Aurland and of their early ex- 
periences. Haakon Lie has a remarkable memory and he has made 
it a point to follow the career and keep in touch with his fellow 
immigrants of 1845, and their history in this country. Space does 
not permit me to give here details from my interview with him, nor 
from that with others relative to the immigration of these years. 
But I may add that the party sailed with Kong Sverre, Captain 
Fisher; they were six weeks and four days on the way from Bergen 
to New York, thence they went by steamboat to Albany, where they 
arrived on the fourth of July. Arriving in Chicago one of the last 
days in July, they remained there a week then proceeded to their 
destination, Koshkonong, driving with oxen from Chicago. 

Haakon Lie says there were none on the ship from Telemarken 
or Numedal; the 300 passengers were all from Sogn and Voss; but I 
learn through others that there were some from Hardanger on the 
ship. 

The limitations of space necessitates curtailment in the account 
in nearly every chapter. From the vast amount of material I have, 
I can offer here practically only that which pertains specifically to 
the history of immigration. 

334 Or, as Kristen Sherpi of West Koshkonong called him in an 
interview last summer, Ivar i Heggvikji. 



CONTINUED IMMIGRATION 309 

Of other immigrants from Aurland, which Mr. 
Anders J. Flaam speaks of, I shall mention Peder J. 
Gjeirsme, and Torbjorn 0. Gjeirsme, wife Metta and 
family, who came in 1846, and Hans Torjussen Flom, 
who, he says, went soon after Ole T. Flom. 

During the year 1845 there came also a group of 
immigrants to Koshkonong from Vik Parish, name- 
ly several families from near Arnefjord. This 
party included several Naset families, the oldest liv- 
ing survivor of which is Jens J. Na\set (b. 1828), 
well-known Koshkonong architect, who resides at 
Stoughton, Wisconsin. ^^^ I have had several inter- 
views with Mr. Na'set relative to their sailing, and 
their early life as pioneers ; it will be possible to bive 
here only the briefest facts. Jens Na^set tells me 
that there were eight estates at Na?set and that the 
owners of four of them sold out at the same time 
and went to America. The biggest of these estates 
was that of Ingebrigt Na^set, or as he was usually 
called, Skuungen. In the party were Jens Nteset's 
parents, Johannes Jensen Naeset and wife Eli, his 
oldest sister Gro, married to Ole Larson (Haugan)^^^ 
who is living in Cambridge, Wisconsin, two brothers 
Ingebrigt and John, and another sister who later 
married Henrik Lien of East Koshkonong. ^^^ 



335 Jens Nipset, I have just learned, died at Stoughton last 
week, May, 1908. 

336 They had one child when they came ; she is Mrs. Ole Venaas, 
Rockdale, Wisconsin. 

337 .Johannes Na;set was born in Feios, but his father had bought 
Nseset in 1823 and settled there, three Norwegian miles from Arne- 
fjord. 



310 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

There were three ships that sailed at the same 
time, Naeset relates. One of these was the Kong 
Sverre, Captain Fischer (of which Haakon Lie speaks 
above), and on which the emigrants from Aurland 
were embarked. Another was a two-masted sloop, 
Peder Schroder, and which carried about 130 pas- 
sengers, among whom the Naeset families ; this sloop 
had crossed twice before. The third was one com- 
manded by Captain Brock. The passengers on this 
ship were mostly from Sogn, but there were three 
boys from Hardanger, and a few persons from Voss. 
Peder Schroder also carried emigrants principally 
from Sogn, but there were two from Voss, says 
Naeset. One of these was Brynjulf Leland, who set- 
tled at Noi*way Grove, where he is still living. The 
other was Odd Himle, whom we have met with above 
page 168, as the guide of the first party of explorers 
of Koshkonong in 1839. He had returned to Nor- 
way in 1844, married there in 1845, and was now re- 
turning to America. Among those who came on the 
Brock-ship were Skuungen and Ole Menes. 

We recognize in Captain Brock's sliip the same 
ship that Lasse Ellingson of Capron, Illinois, came 
on in 1845. It was furthermore the very same voy- 
age of this ship. The name of the ship was Albion. 
For a partial list of the passengers on this ship as 
of Peder Schroder, whose captain was Vingaard, ^^^ 
the reader may now be referred to the account of the 
sailing of these two ships above. Chapter XXXII. 



338 The much talked of Vingaard-ship. 



CONTINUED IMMIGRATION 311 

The two ships Kong Sverre and Peder Schroder 
sailed side by side the whole way, relates Njrset, 
Kong Sverre arriving in New York in the evening, 
Peder Schroder the next morning. Captain Brock's 
ship which had started ten days earlier, arrived 
three days later (see above page 275). From New 
York the immigrants were taken over the usual route 
to Milwaukee. "^ Having arrived in Muskego, they 
secured Halvor Luraas to take their goods to Kosh- 
konong; he brought them to Clinton (Rockdale), 
where the first man they met was Torstein Selseng, 
who had emigrated from Aurland, Sogn, to Kosh- 
konong the preceding year. Johannes Naeset, who 
was a man of considerable means for the time, 
bought the land, which is now occupied by the son 
Ingebrigt Na?set, which is section thirty-five in the 
southeastern part of Christiana Township. 

Johannes Naeset was born in Leikanger Parish 
in 1795; his wife, Eli I. Berdahl, was born in 1797. 
She died in Koshkonong in 1850, Johannes died in 
1882. He was noted for his ability as a mechanic, 
was successful as a maker of violins, and was him- 
self a capable player. Jens Nasset early dis- 
tinguished himself as a builder and an architect. 
Though but sixteen years old he assisted in the build- 
ing of the old log church in East Koshkonong in 
1844, and it was Naeset who took it down again in 
1858 and constructed the old stone church, which a 
few years ago was replaced by a handsome brick 

339 Mr. Nffiset's full account of this journey I shall publish else- 
where. 



312 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

edifice. He also built the tower of the old Liberty 
Prairie Church, and a number of the oldest houses 
on Albion Prairie were erected by him. Jens N?pset 
was married in 1850; he has no children. Mrs. Ole 
Melaas of Stoughton, Wisconsin, is an adopted 
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. NfBset. ^''° 

As has been noted, there was a considerable im- 
migration from Sogndal, Sogn, in 1846 ; to name only 
a few: Ole C. Teigen, Ellend T. Quale, with wife 
Dordei Baardsdatter and family, eight in all, Anders 
S. Hundere, Nils 0. Selseng and wife, and Johannes 
I. Gjerde. From Aurland, Sogndal, and Hafslo 
there came others in the following four years. I 
shall here name Peder Sj^festson Aaberge from 
Hafslo, who came in 1847, Ole 0. Anderson (1848), 
Ole 0. Hemsing (1849), both from Sogndal, Atle S. 
Gjellum and family. Per Sherping and wife Kristine 
and Kristen Olson Gulvangen from Aurland in 1849. 
Of these Aaberge later moved to Minnesota. Ole 
Anderson (often called Skog-Ola) settled three 
miles north of Albion, where he lived till his death. 
He married Guri Pederson, adoptive daughter of 
Torstein Selseng in 1851, who had come to America 
in 1849. She died in June, 1909. Ole Hemsing lo- 
cated first in Cottage Grove; in 1855 he purchased 
the old Hemsing farm three miles north of Stough- 
ton, later owned by the son Ole H. Hemsing (b. 1853), 
since 1884, of Stoughton, Wisconsin. Ole 0. Hemsing 
died about 1895, the widow (Ragnilda) died in 1907. 



340 The Na>sets have been living in Stoughton since 187G. 



CONTINUED IMMIGRATION 313 

Per Sherping died early and the widow married 
Kristen Olson, who then took the name Sherping 
(Sherpi). Kristen Sherpi (b. 1823) is still living 
at the old homestead near West Koshkonong 
at the old homestead near West Koshkonong Church. 
There was scattered immigration from Telemarken 
down to 1850, especially from Hvideseid, about forty 
in all came from Hallingdal, and twenty-five from 
Hardanger; Valders, Ringsaker, Biri and Vardal, 
and a dozen other j)rovinces and parishes are repre- 
sented by four or five settlers each. The first to 
arrive from Hardanger were Svend L. Lund, 
Ingebrekt, Nicolai, and Johannes Erdahl, Guttorm 
Buo, Ole L. and Aslak E. Quammen; these came in 
1847. From Ringsaker came Anders J. Tommer- 
stigen, wife Maria Olsdatter and children Johannes, 
Olive, Peter (b. 1843) and Karen Marie, in 1846, 
while from North Aurdal in Valders came Ole Loe 
and Ole H. Hippe, both with families, and from 
Slidre, Tollef H. Ovale, all in 1847. 

I shall now offer a copy of the official register of 
members of the Koshkonong churches during this pe- 
riod, according to the Parochial Records left by Rev- 
erend J. W. C. Dietrichson for the years 1844 to 
1850. This is here printed for the first time and will 
be read with considerable interest by the many des- 
cendants of the founders of these two historic con- 
gregations on Koshkonong Prairie. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

'^Kirkeregister." Church Register of the East Kosh- 
konong, West Koshkonong and Liberty Prairie 
Congregations as Constituted Duriyig the 
Years of Reverend J. W. C. Dietrich- 
son's Incumbency of the Pastorate 
from 1844 to 1850, and as Re- 
corded by Reverend Diet- 
richson. ^*^ 



Bygd 

Ole Knudsen Trovatten 
Gunnul Olsen Vindaeg 

Ole, 1842 
Gudbrand Gudbrandson Holtan 
Torkild Gunlegsen Sundboe '*^ 
Torstein Thronsen Selseng 
John Pederson Tverberg 
Knud Mortensen Roland 
Mikkel Johnson Engesaeter ^*^ 
Niels Olsen Smetbak 
Gisle Helgesen Venaas 
Sondre Olsen Reishus 
Even Stenerson Bilstad 
Johannes Johnson Berg 
Gunder Jorgensen Fladland 
Bjorn Gulbrandsen Morkvold 

Gulbrand 
Halvor Johnson Grovuna 





Indvan 






Navn 


drede 


Fodt 


Kones Navn 




i Aar 


Aar 


og Fodselsaar 


Laurdal 


1840 


1807 




Rollaug 


1839 
1842 


1808 


Guri, 1811 


Flesberg 


1843 






Sillejord 


1843 


1816 


Margit 


SogHdal 


1844 




Kari 


Tind 


1842 
1844 


1811 


Gro 


Leganger 


1844 


1819 


Synneva, 1822 


Rollaug 


1842 




Barbro 


Rollaug 


1844 






Sillejord 


1843 


1820 




Moe 


1843 


1802 


Dagne 


Kragero 


1844 






Hvidsoe 


1843 






Rolland 


1842 




Asbjor 


Nissedal 


1843 




Gunhild 



341 To save space I have set the wife's name at the extreme 
right of the page, instead of below the husband 's name ; children 's 
names are given in the second line. The English foot notes are my 
own additions. Caption in fourth column added by me. 

342 Han bor paa Sun Prairie. Han arbeidede den ftirste Dobe- 
font i Vostre Kirke, 1844. 

343 Kr flyttel til Norway Grove. 



CHURCH REGISTER 



315 



Gaute Ingebretsen GuUiksrud 
Niels Colbeinsen Fladland 
Hans Pedersen Tverberg 

Peder, 1845 
Amund Anderson 
Anfin Anfindsen Haugerud 
Knud Olsen Holtene 
Mikke! Hansen Strommen 
Anen Tollefsen Bolstad 
Baruld Johnsen Strandskougen 

Aase Helene, Helge Marie 
Knud Aslaksen Gjottil 
Niels Torstensen Seim 

Ingeleif, Torsten, Britha 
Christen Olsen Hole 
Tollef Olsen Kaase 
Johannes Johnson Berge 
Ellef Anderson Berg 
Tollef Johannesen Berge 
Tens Pedersen Vehus 
Knud Osmundsen Dahle 
V'etle Osmundsen Dahle 
Richard Bjornsen Rotkjon 
Knud Aslaksen Juve 
Halvor Paulsen Grovum 
Even Eilertsen Buaas 
Bjorn Olson Rom 
Hellik Gundersen Vashovd 
Peder Larsen Svartskuur 

Marthe Marie, Grethe Sophie 
Thore Knudsen Nore 
Knud Kittilsen Baglie 
Ole EJlingsen Fladland 
Peder Kittilsen Byestolen 
Tov Kittilsen Svimbll 

Kittil 1833, Ole, Gunhild 1843 
John Halvorsen Grovum 
Ole Pedersen Selseng 
Tarald Ellefsen Midboe '" 
Ole Helgesen Lien 

Barbro Larsdatter (her child) 
I.ars Johannesen Hollo 

Fredrik, Martin, Anders 
Gunslein Rolfscn Omdal 
Odne Osmundsen Bondal 
Halvor Larsen Stahlsbraaten 
Gjermund Knudsen Sunde 



Tind 


1843 


1815 


Kari 


Hvidsoe 


1843 






Tind 


1841 


1814 


Ingeborg, 1820 


Stavanger 


1836 




Ingeborg 


Rollaug 


1844 






Hvidsoe 


1843 




Kirkesanger 


Hvidsoe 


1843 






Gjerpen 


1844 






Drangedal 


1843 




Kari Kristine 


Laurdal 


1843 


1803 


Thone 1816 


Leirdal 


1844 


1812 


Mari 


Vos 


1844 


1813 




Laurdal 


1844 






Laurdal 


1843 


1791 


Birgit 


Sandsvaerd 


1843 






Laurdal 


1843 


1814 




Rollaug 


1842 


1814 




Sillejord 


1843 






Sillejord 


1843 






Vinje 


1842 


1816 




Hvidsoe 


1843 


1799 


Gudbjor 1802 


Nissedal 


1843 






Krageroe 


1843 


1799 




Krageroe 


1843 






Flesberg 


1842 




Marith 


Eger 


1843 




Groe 


Rollaug 


1842 




Gjertrud 


Flesberg 


1843 






Sogndal 


1844 






Vos 


1843 






Tind 
1 


1836 


1801 


Sigrid, 1800 


Nissedal 


1843 






Sogndal 


1844 






Holt 


1843 




Anne 


Rollaug 


1841 




Thuri 


1. Ole 








Hedemarken 


1839 




Marie 


Moland 


1844 






Moland 


1843 






Rollaug 


1843 


1820 




Rollaug 


1839 


1812 





344 Married the widow Anne Gurine Engebrektsdatter in 1846. 



316 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



OIc Knudsen Hjemdal 

Gunder Gundersen \'ashovd 

Ole Torgersen Bergland 

Knud EHingsen Doknaes 

Christen Lassesen Melaas 

Peder Larsen Hollo 

Stener Evensen Bilstad 

Halvor Aslaksen Kostvedt 
Aslak 1845 

Ole Laurandsen Hogndalen 

John Ilalvorsen Vindlos 

Even Jorgensen lualen 

Osmund Aslaksen Naestestue 

Hermund Endresen Huke 
Endre, Lars 

Neri Tarjesen Hauge 

Peder Larsen Gjerde 

Halvor Laurantsen Fosheim 

Aslak Olsen Gjergjord 

Ole Iversen Huseboe 

Anna 1833, Gjertrud 1837, 

Lars Larsen Hollo 

Ole Knudsen Dyrland 

Kittil Kittilsen Rinden 

Ole Sondessen Brakken 

Sjur Sjursen Olmen 

Gotskalk Odmundsen Meland 

Thone Aslaksdatter Lien 

Anna Larsdatter Eggum '" 

(widow, one child, Anna) 

Stephen Knudsen Gilderhus 

Elling Olsen Fladland 

Knud Annundsen Jamsgaard 
John Osmundsen Suboe 

Henrik Olsen Haeve Vos 

Berge 1833 

Reinert Andreas Gunstelnsen 

Clemet Larsen Stahlsbraaten 

Johannes Larsen Hollo 

Ingeborg Olsdatter Trovatten, EnkeLaurdal 

Ole Herbransen Morkvold 

Aslak Evensen Groven 

Bjorn Olsen Hustvedt 

Aniund Olsen Jordet 

Tollef Kittilsen Rinden 

Gunder Kittilsen Rinden 

Ole Andersen Vaerken 



Laurdal 


1844 


1799 




Flesberg 


1842 




Kirsti 


Moe 


1843 






Holt 








Sogndal 


1844 


1799 


Aase, 1803 


Ringsager 


1839 






Moe 


1843 


1828 




Vinje 


1842 




Sigrid 


Sillejord 


1843 


1807 




Laurdal 


1844 






Laurdal 


1844 






Vinje 


1843 


1797 




Leganger 


1844 


1811 


Kirsti 


Hvidsoe 


1844 






Leganger 


1844 


1797 




Sillejord 


1843 


1810 




Hvidsoe 


1843 






Leganger 


1844 


1808 


Ingeleiv, 1805 


,ars 1840, Iver 


1844 






Ringsager 


1839 




Gunbjor 


Sillejord 


1843 


1819 




Moland 


1843 


1791 




Vinje 


1844 






Sogndal 


1844 


1816 




Vos 


1844 


1806 




Laurdal 


1843 


1807 




Leganger 


1843 


1811 




V^os 


1838 


1813 


Anne, 1806 


Sogndal 


1844 






Vinje 


1843 







1844 1800 



Moland 


1844 




Modum 


1843 




Ringsaker 


1839 


1822 Andrine 


; Laurdal 


1843 




Rollaug 


1842 




Laurdal 


1843 


1802 


Vinje 


1843 




Moland 


1843 


1816 


Moland 


1843 


1S2G 


Moland 


1843 


1823 


Leganger 


1844 


1823 


Sjur Colbeinsen 


Droksvold. 



CHURCH REGISTER 



317 



Osmund Vetlensen Dahle 
Herbrand ToIIefsen Morkvold 
Knud Helliksen Roe 
Ole Larson Stromi 
Aniind Olsen Drotning 
Gunleg Johnsen Haugelie 
Aslak Bjornson Rotkjon 
'fhron Halvorsen Gjotil 
Ole Aslaksen Rorge 
Abraham Knudsen Ronningen 

Knud 
Erik Knudsen Ronningen 
Halvor Eilertsen Dahl 

Eilert, Olaus, Carl 
Niels Johnson Luraas 
Anver Halvorsen Grovum 
Anders Halvorsen Grovum 
Tarje Nerisen Haugc 
Ole Sorensen Quistrud 
Knud Halvorsen Teisberg 
Thorbiorn Guttormsen Viig 
Ole Gulbrandson Holtan 
Niels Olsen Grovum 
Knud Olsen Lien 
Halvor Johnsen Donstad 
Torstein Gunlegsen Bringa 
Askjer Knudsen Hjemdal, Pige 
John Olsen Haugen 
Harald Kittilsen Dahle 
Halvor Kittilsen Luraas 

Kittil 1840, Niels 1845, Ingebor 
Lars Gunlegsen Sundboe 
Berit Levorsdatter Bergerud 
Anders Andersen Fenne 
Aadne Bjornson Lien 
Botolf Larsen Lunde 
Knud Thoresen Nore 
Aslau Thorsdatter Kaase 
Gulbrand Gulbrandsen Holtan 
Kittil Gulliksen Baglie 
Inbeborg ToHefsdatter Midtlien 

Tellef, Gunhild, Thone 
Mons Simonsen Halfsrund 
Halvor Danielsen Stensrud 
Bjorn Osmundsen Naestestue 
Eigil Aslaksen Lien 
Erik Henriksen Haeve 



Sillejord 


1843 






RoUaug 


1842 






Tind 


1839 




Anne 


\'os 


1844 


1796 




Vinje 


1843 


1819 


Lisbeth 3" 


Hvidsoe 


1844 






Vinje 


1842 


1826 




Laurdal 


1843 


1819 




Laurdal 


1843 




Gunhild 


Krageroe 


1843 




Ingeborg 


Krageroe 


1843 






Krageroe 


1843 




Anne 


Tind 


1843 


1789 




Nissedal 


1843 


1814 




Nissedal 


1843 


1824 




Hvidesoe 


1844 






Tind 


1843 






Laurdal 


1843 


1803 




Sillejord 


1843 






Flesberg 


1843 






Nissedal 


1843 






Laurdal 


1844 


1797 


Ragnhild 


Hvidesoe 


1843 


1816 




Sillejord 


1843 


1817 




Nordrehaug 


1840 






Sillejord 


1843 






Tind 


1841 


1814 


Jorand, 1815 


Sillejord 


1843 


1829 




Flesberg 


1843 






Vos 


1838 






Hvidesoe 


1843 






Vos 


1844 






Rollaug 


1842 






Rollaug 


1842 






Flesberg 


1843 






Flesberg 


1843 






Moland 


1843 






Viig 


1844 






Sanne 


1849 






Vinje 


1843 






Vinje 


1843 






Vos 


1844 







346 Lisbeth Evensdatter Tveba^kken, from Vinje. 



318 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Ole Nielsen Grovum 
Torsten Torstenson Gaarden 
John Johnson Landsvaerk 

Peder, John 
Tollef Sigurdsen Tveten 
Juri Knudsdatter Holtene 
Turi Hermandsdatter Fjerrestad "° 
Martha Ellingsdatter Fladland 
Ingeborg Halvorsdatter Hagedalen 
Anna Christensdatter Melaas 
Martha Henriksdatter Haeve 
Asian Eivindsdatter Qualen 
Guro Olsdatter Stromi 
Synneva Olsdatter Huseboe 
Ingeborg Tarjesdatter Dyrdal 
Ragnhild Herbrandsdatter Morkvold 
Gjertrud Brynildsdatter Sanve 
Knud Olsen Hjemdal 
Thorbjorn Gunderson Fladland 
Halvor Nerisen Hauge 
Asbjorn Eivindson Qualen 
Colbein Nielson Fjeldtoye 
Tollef Anesen Bolstad 
Ole Gundersen Bringen 
Tarje Aslaksen Lien 
Ole Henriksen Hseve 
Gunhild Aslaksdatter Giottil 
Kristi Halstensdatter Vinje 
Knut Jarandsen Bosboen 
Ole Olsen Stuen 

Aslak, Ole 
Gunvor Johannesdatter Berge 
Gunleg Torkildsen Sundboe 
Gunder Olsen Skrabak 
Ole Anderson Sanden 
Kittil Tovson Aase 
Liv Pedersdatter Bjaaen, Enke 
Johannes Anderson Aabo 
Ole Knudsen Gilderhus 

Britha 
Lars Nilsen Vaehle 
Lars Torgersen Rote 

Torge 1845 
Torstein Levorsen Bergerud 

Levor 



Nissedal 


1843 






Tind 


1842 




Anna 


Hjendahl 


1842 




Anne 


Omgangsskole 


laerer, 




Kirkesanger 


Laurdal 


1844 






Hvidesoe 


1843 






Viig 


1844 






Sogndal 


1844 






Hvidesoe 


1843 






Sogndal 


1844 






Vos 


1844 






Laurdal 


1844 






Vos 


1844 






Sogndal 


1844 


1831 ^^ 


Laurdal 


1843 


1829 




1 Rollaug 


1842 






Vos 


1844 






Laurdal 


1844 






Hvidesoe 


1843 






Hvideso 


1844 






Laurdal 


1844 






Vos 


1844 






Gjerpen 


1844 






Sillejord 


1843 


1830 




Moe 


1843 






Vos 


1844 






Laurdal 


1843 


1792 




Vos 


1844 


1821 




Sillejord 


1843 






Sovde 


1843 


1814 


Asian 


Laurdal 


1843 


1822 




Sillejord 


1843 


1785 


Margit 


Sillejord 


1843 






Sillejord 


1843 


1821 




Sillejord 


1843 






Sillejord 


1842 






Hvidesoe 


1843 






Vos 


1839 


1817 


Martha 


Vos 


1844 


1803 




Vos 


1840 


1819 


Ingeborg, 1822 



Flesberg 



1842 



Kirsti 



350 Later married Stephen Olsen Dahle. 

351 She was born in Leganger. 



CHURCH REGISTER 



319 



Anne Marie Halvorsdatter Thorstad 

enke 
Thore Olsen Kaase 
Niels Larsen Bolstad 

Lars, Ingeborg 
Ole Sjurdsen Gilderhus 

Martha 1845, Syvert 1845 
Lars Davidsen Rekve 
Ole Larsen Dygsteen 
Niels Cornelius Nielson Tveten 
Osmund Osmundsen Lunde 
Niels EUefsen Masterud 
V'aeren Svendsen Tveten 
Even Olsen Unskard 

Ole, Mari 
Aasild Torgrimsdatter Strand 
Anders Nielsen Grove 
Anders Ilalskusen Sanden 
Even Sorensen Bjaaland 
Barbro Evensdatter '" 
Eilert Evensen Buaas 
Aslak Anundsen Juvet 

Thore, Thov, Thone 
Even Olsen Ramberg 
Gunhild Nielsdatter Luraas 
Aslau Nielsdatter Luraas 
Jacob Jarandsen Bosboen 
Gulleck Torstensen Saue 
Donaut Torgeirsdatter Rolje 
Ole Knudsen Schserdal ^*^ 
Ole Knudsen Traengeklev 
Knud Ingebrigtsen Gjerde 
Ole Gunlegsen Sundboe 
Knud Olsen Asdohldalen 
Johannes Christiansen Bjelde 
Hans Thowsen Ederklip 
Lars Ilenricksen Lien 

Mette Larsdatter Lien 
Henrich Larsen Lien 
Ole Holjesen Yttreboe 
Johanne, Anne 



LJer 


1843 


1809 




Rollaug 


1842 




Anne 


Vos 


1837 




Anne 


Vos 


1840 


1814 


Eli 


Vos 


1839 


1818 


Ingeborg 


Vos 


1843 




Anna 


Sandsvaerd 


1844 




Anna Kirstine 


Vinje 


1842 






Bamble 


1843 


1816 




Laurdal 


1844 






Hallingdal 


1843 




Sigrid 


Moland 


1843 


1774 




Vos 


1843 




Borgilda 


Sillejord 


1844 






Laurdal 


1844 






Sannikedal 


1843 


1827 




Sannikedal 


1843 


1829 




Laurdal 


1843 




Barbro 


Vinje 


1844 






Tind 




1826 




Tind 




1829 




Sillejord 


1843 






Voss 


1840 


1821 




Voss 


1844 


1820 




Urland, Sogn 


1843 






Sillejord 


1843 


1816 




Sogndal 


1844 




Synneva 


Sillejord 


1843 


1819 




Lier 


1843 


1821 




Sogndal 


1844 




Christie **» 


Rollaug 


1843 






Ness 


1845 


1790 


Jorand, 1787 


(Hallingdal) 






Ness 


1845 


1823 




Ness 


1845 


1826 




Hvidesoe 


1842 




Margit 



347 Later married Tollef S. Aae; he was not in the congregation. 

348 ' ' Hans hiistru er endnu i Norge, men han venter hende i 
Sommer. " Added later: "han er dod. " 

349 She was Christie Monsdatter Melaas; is still living (Stough- 
ton, Wis.). 



320 



NORWEO FAN I M M I ORATION 



IiiKcbifKt Ingcbrcclitscii Na-sc Wiigs 

I'ri'stcgjxld 
Jolin, Ingebrccht, Gjertrud 
Gudvc Niolsdatter Droksvold, Enke, Voss 



Anders l'",lliiigscn Aase 

Joliannes Jensen Nsese 
Jens Jolianncsen Naese 
Sjur Magncsen Sa;tre 
Mods I^asscsen Melaas 
OIc Andersen Melaas 

M.)ns 1840. Kari 1844 
l?irgitte Johnsilaftor T^icn 
IngC'borg JoImsdalUr I.iiii 
Niels Nielsen Girl 



Wiigs Preste- 

KJfcld 
WiiR 
Wiig 
Vos 

Sogndal 
Siigndal 



Tin.I 
'I'ind 
Nxss, 

Ilallingdal 
Niels 1841, Mari, 1843, Tver, 1845 



Ole Gullikscn Kjerre 
Gjcrtrnd Olsdatter Sxlabakka 
Lasse Sjurscn Lillesand 
Knud I<aavesen Aaker 
I<ars Knudsen Aaker 
Wetle Torjiiscn llaatvcdt 
Tor jus Vetlesen Ilaatvedt 
Aasne Kvensdatter Rue 
Peder M onsen I, oven "" 
Jens Torgersen Ta;rum 

Torgcr 1844, Unni 
Ingeborg Olsdatter Kaminerfos 
Sorine Johannesdattcr llolle 
Birgith Pcdersdattcr 'I'verberg 
Hans Olsen Asclie 
Knud Larsen Bjaaland 
Gunder Tollcfson Qvaale 
Ivor Hansen Na;se 
Anders Sjursen Ovreboe 

Ole 1834, Andrine 1838 
Ole Syvertscn Skoltcr 
llalvor Svennungsen Barstrak 
Anne Marie Christensdatter 
Tlior I.arsen Skareboe 
IJritha llansdatter Ouamme 
Ole Vetlesen Qualen 
Anders Olsen Askje 
Stener Ilalvorsen Junnsaas 



I,aurdal 

Rollaug 

Vig 

Ivaurdal 

I,anrdal 

I^nrdal 

T.aurdal 

Laurdal 

Sogn 

Sogn 

Sanikedal 
Sanikedal 
Tind 
I,^inrd;il 
I.aurdal 
Laurdal 
Sogn 

Sogn, Lyster 
Cbristine 1841 
Laurdal 
Drangcdal 
Draiigedal 
Sanikedal 
Vig 

lyaurdal 
I<aurdal 
Sande 



1845 
1842 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 

1845 
1845 
1842 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 

1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1845 



1810 



1845 

1844 

1845 
1845 
1845 
1844 
1844 
1844 

1843 
1843 

1845 1817 



1822 
1820 
1797 
1825 



1813 

1830 
1812 



Johanne 



ICli 



1787 Martha, 1796 
1812 Martha "'*■- 



Christine 



Birgit 



1811 Johanna 
1801 



1819 

1823 
1797 
1799 Anne 



Signe 



3S2M:irtlia Moiisdiittor Molaas, b. 1818. 
353 Saind ;is Per Trod ja. 



CHURCH REGISTER 



P.21 



Kmit Krichsen Rokne 
( He Tostensen Gaarden 
Torbjorn Ellcfson Skaatc 
Anders Olsen Skolaas 
Aslak Olsen Midgaarden 
Anders Evcnsen Trovatrcn 
Kittil Rollcifsen L,eguam 

Rolleif 
Torgcim Olsen Askjc 
Ole Andersen Droksvold 
Sjur Colbeinsen Droksvold 
Jacob Thomsen Aase 
Ole Tollefsen Quaale 
Gunder Torgeson Sundet 
Lars Kllefsen Mastrei 
Jens Kllefsen Mastrei 
Knud Sorensen Quistrud 
Gunild Kittelsdatter Bortc, Knkc 
Claus Gjcrmundsen Traae 
Kittil Torjusen Borte 
Iver Ingebrechtsen Yttrelie 
Johannes Olsen Finne 
Ole Olsen Skrabak 
Niculs Ilalvorscn Aasen 
Anders Johnson AabOe 
Kittil Kittilsen Stohrmyr 
Andreas Larsen Hollo 
Ole Anundsen Buina 

Anne 1846 
Iver Knudsen GilderTius 
Johannes Johanncsen Msenjcs 
Ole Olsen Nxse 
Aslak Andersen AabOe 
Ole Pedersen Nksc 
Erich Kvensen IIcllc 
Knudt Rcndt Nielsen Hclle 
Tollef Olsen Haatvedt 
Peder Simon Asmundsen 
Endre Andersen Vraae 
Lars Davidson Molster 
Anne Gislesdatter Hamrc 
Ilalvor Hansen Dalstiel 
Thomas Tostensen Seim 
Margrethe Olsdatter GJetde 
Sebjorn Thoresen Nore 
Osten Olsen Blomhauge 
Halvor Staalesen Sandbaek 



Voss 


1840 


1820 


Tind 


1843 




Krageriie 


184S 


1814 


Laurdal 


1843 


1817 


Lniirdal 


1844 


1819 


I^aurdal 


1843 




Sande 


1844 




Laurdal 


1845 




Vos 


1844 




Vos 


1844 




Sillejord 


1843 




Laurdal 


1845 


1816 


Moe 


1843 




Banible 


1843 




Bamble 


1843 




Tind 


1843 




B(ic 


1845 




Drangedal 


1845 




Boo 


1845 




Sogn 


1845 




Viig 


1845 




Sillejord 


1843 


1823 


I,aiirdal 


1845 


1826 


Tlvidescie 


1845 




B6e 


1845 


1815 


Ringsaker 


1843 




Flcsberg 


1842 




Vos 


1845 


1810 


Wiig 


1845 




Wiig 


1845 




Hvidesoe 


1845 




Wiig 


1845 




Sanikcdal 


1845 


1822 


Sanikedal 


1845 




laurdal 


1845 




Sanikedal 


1845 




Hvidesoe 


1843 




Vos 


1844 


1814 


Flesberg 


1842 


1797 


Hvidesoe 


1842 




Leirdal 


1844 


1827 


Lcirdal 


1845 




Rollaug 


1842 




Tind 


1843 




Laurdal 


1844 





1820 Cherstic ="" 



Liv 



(three children) 



Fraflyttet 



Helene 



Sigrid 



354 They were married in 1845. 



322 



NORWEaiAN IIVIMIGRATION 



Halvor GulHksen Bringa 
Peder Torjussen Tallakshavnen 
Torjiis Pedersen Tallakshavnen 
Ole Pederson Tallakshavnen 
Guttorm Torbjornsen Wlig 
Halvor Asbjornsen Juve 

Ltiv, Asbjorn, Eigild, Asmund 
Helge Sigurdsen Grimsrud 

Sigurd 
Aslak Olsen Olsnes 

Olaus 
Torbjorn Knudsen Rodningen 
Ole Vendelbo Olsen Gjerlov 

Ole Stephanas 
Sjiir Iversen Romoren 
Ole Tostensen Aasnaes 
Knud Danielsen Stubberud 

Ilans Daniel 1839 
Peter Knudsen Stubberud 
Halvor Jensen Stubberud 
Aadne Eigilsen Ogaard 
Ole, Torbjorn 1843 
L,ars Pedersen Haukelien 
Anne, Hans, Caroline 
Niels Sjursen Gilderhus 

Martha Maria 1846 
Sigurd Johnson Gislov 
Ole Nielsen Steenhjerde 
Haege Olsdatter Aasnaes 
Kittil Hansen Strommi 
Anne Halvorsdatter Limesand 
Halvor Torjussen Borte 
Ole Larsen FimrecJe 
Endre Endresen Kudi 

Maritha 1838, Olene 
John Torjussen Homme 
Stephen Olsen Dahle 
Torsten Olsen Brsekke 

Ole, Ragnilda 
Knud Olsen Aaretuen 

Gunilda Christine (Urland), 
Torstein Olson Bjodland 

Ole, John, 1846 
Vetle Thronsen Norgaarden 
Hans Gulbrandsen Morkvolden 



Sillejord 


1843 


Krageroe 


1845 


Krageroe 


1845 


Krageroe 


1845 


Laurdal 


1843 


Hvidesoe 


1842 


, Anne 




Tind 


1842 



Vinje 

Krageroe 
Urland 

Leganger 

Winje 

Skauger 

Skauger 
Skauger 
Vinje 

Rogen 

Vos 

Winje 

leganger 

Vinje 

Hvidesoe 

Viig 

Boe 

Sogndal 

Vos 

Hvidesoe 

Viig 

Urland 



1842 

1843 
1844 

1845 
1842 
1844 

1844 
1843 
1843 

1843 

1839 

1845 
1845 
1842 
1843 
1845 
1845 
1846 
1839 

1843 
1845 
1845 



Leirdal 1844 

Annie Marie, Ole 
Haae, Jaederen 1826 



Birgith 



Anne 

Ragnild. Er 

Fraflyttet 
1824 Brithe 

Ingeborg 
1798 Martha Maria 

1824 
1803 

Guro 

Bertha 

Ragnild 

1821 

1790 Dagne 

1826 
1810 
1796 Jorand 



1825 

1800 Anne ''= 

1812 in Urland, Anne 
(Leirdal) 
1803 Guro 



Hvidesoe 
Rollaug 



1843 
1845 



1805 Ingeborg 



355 Came to America in 1843. 

356 Born 1819 in Laerdal. 



CHURCH REGISTER 



323 



Gabriel Bjornson ^'' 


Drammen 


1843 


1820 




Hellik Helliksen Berge 


Flesberg 


1843 


1821 




Ole Aslaksen Lien 


Vinje 


1843 


1821 




Ole Amindsen Jamsgaard 


Vinje 


1846 


1816 




Hermand Thomassen Vee 


Leirdal 


1845 


1805 


Ingeborg An- 


Jolianne 1838, Ingeborg Andrea, 1843 






drea b. 1813 


Ole Olsen Svakur 


Leirdal 


1845 


1820 




Thomas Johnsen Landeman 


Sandsvaerd 


1842 


1804 


Stine 


Erik Johannesen Vtterlie 


Urland 


1845 


1802 


Martha, 1798 


Ingeborg 1831, Lars 1833, 


Anna 1858, Haakei 


ti 1835, 


, Thomas, 1840. 


Johannes Eriksen Ytterlie 


Urland 


1845 


1829 




Lars Gundersen Gjellum 


Urland 


1845 


1811 


Gjertrud, 1817 


Knud, Marthe 










Thorbjorn Olsen Gjesme 


Urland 


1846 


1802 


Inga 


Ingeborg, Kari 










Ole Olsen Gjesme 

Ole 
Jens Bottolsen Bergvam 


Urland 


1846 


1805 


Ingeborg 


Urland 


1845 


1821 




Tosten Bottolsen Bergvam 


Urland 


1845 






Ellend Thronsen Qvale 


Sogndal 


1846 


1801 


Dordei 



Synneva, Thron, Baar, Johannes, Ellend, Dorthe 



Vetle Gundersen Felland 

Gunder, Else 1844 
Ole Halvorsen Kirkeboe 
Kittil Torgersen Teigseth 
Kittil Kittilsen Teigseth 
Gullik Gislesen Hamre 
Hellik Gulliksen Hamre 
Ole Tollefsen Hulcreroen 
Jorgen Kittilsen Strommen 
Abraham Kittilsen Strommen 
Anders Helliksen Texle 
Lars Thorbjornsen Gjesme 
Ole Ingebretsen Homstad 
Knud Eriksen Aaretuen 
Gullik Halvorsen Holtan 

Levor 1830, Berit 1836 
Halvor Gulliksen Holtan 
Joseph Johannesen Gjellum 
Amund Olsen StromI 
Eigild Eigildsen Bredland 
Johannes Andersen Leidal 
Tollef Olsen Hulderoen 
Thosstol Tellefsen Hulderoen 
Anders Sjursen Hundere 
Tver Knudsen Seim 
Isak Jacobsen Nordboe 



Moe 



1846 1819 Astrid 1821 



Laurdal 


1841 


1799 




Flesberg 


1846 


1805 


Berit 


Flesberg 


1846 


1829 




Flesberg 


1846 


1795 




Flesberg 


1846 


1829 




Krageroe 


1846 


1815 


Anne 1821 


Hvidesoe 


1843 






Hvidesoe 


1843 






Flesberg 


1846 


1791 


Gunhild 


Urland 


1846 


1829 




Overhalden 


1846 


1794 


iMarie 1798 


Leirdal 


1846 


1796 


Christie 1796 


Flesberg 


1846 


1791 


Anne 


Flesberg 


1846 


1823 




Leirdal 


1845 




Anna 


Vos 


1844 


1828 




Laurdal 


1845 






Vos 


1845 


1819 




Krageroe 


1843 


1781 


Helga 1777 


Krageroe 


1843 


1821 




Sogndal 


1846 


1817 




Vos 


1846 


1806 


Anna 


Moland 









357 Er Justice of the Peace. 



324 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Guri Pedersdatter 
Niels Olsen Selseng 
Ole Christiansen Selseng 

Britha, Gjertrud, Christian 
Ole Rasmussen Reinen 

Michel 1832, Rasmus 1837 
Ole Olsen Reinen 
Knud Saammudsen Aae 
Anders Johannesen Tommerstigen 



Sogndal 


1844 


1831 




Sogndal 


1846 


1802 


Ingeborg, 


Sogndal 


1846 




Martha 



Moe 



Lanrdal 
Vardal 



1802 



1846 177S Ingeborg, 1794 



1843 
1846 



1827 
1817 



Johannes, Olive 1836 (Vardal) Peder 1843 (Vardal) 



Johannes Leiersen Svanejord Hvidesoe 1846 

Ole Bjorgosen Oftelie Laurdal 1846 

Knud Stephensen Tveit Vos 1845 

Johannes Johannesen Vserlie Sogndal 1846 

Marthe Knudsen Braekke Urland 1846 

Peder Larsen Lien Nxs i Halld 1845 

Ole Torjussen Flom Urland 1844 

Ole 1830, Anders 1823 ^ss 

Niels Nielsen Giri Naes i Halld 1846 

Ole Gulliksen Barstad Sillejord 1842 

Vetle, Eivind, Halvor 

Halvor Olsen Gjerjord ^'inge 1843 

Henrik Halvorsen Lien Naes, Halld 1846 

Ole Johnson Holstad Viig 1845 



Aslaug 
Ringsaker, 1807 
Maria, 1807 
Karen Marie, 1845 

Thone, 1801 



1818 
1799 
1801 
1816 
1813 



17^4 Anna, 1798 



1793 
1791 

1822 
1831 
1810 



Ingeborg, 1799 



Gjertrud, 1800 



Britha 1831, Ragnald 1823, Johannes 1836, Olive 1843 



Nicolai Halvorsen Paus 
Jens Sjursen Hundere 
Martha Olsd. Selseng 
Ole Vaernsen Skotter 
Ole Olsen Huset 



Hvidesoe 

Sogndal 

Sogndal 

Laurdal 

Holden 



Ole, Karen, Andrea Sugar Creek 

Ole Olsen Huset Holden 

Gunder, Hans, Anders, Aslaug Maria, Karen 
Christen Tellefsen Hulderoen Krageroe 

Tellef, Villam 
Ole Olsen Laurvlg 



Anders Olsen Baerstad 
Ole Andersen Baerstad 
Kari Olsdatter Dale 
Ole Gundersen Felland 
Simon Monsen Halfrund 
Torbjorn Halvorsen 
Bjorgo Haraldsen 
Thomas Johnsen 



Drangedal 

Drangedal 

Viig 

Moe 

Viig 

Vinje 

Vinje 

Drangedal 



1846 
1846 
1844 
1845 
1844 

1846 
1846 
Maria 
1846 

1844 

1846 
1846 
1845 
1846 
1845 
1845 
1845 
1846 



1824 



1821 Kirsten Maria, 
1825 
Sugar Creek dobt 
1790 Anna 

Karen Maria 

Anne, Christiania, 
1843, fraflyttet 



1828 
1826 
1774 



358 This is an error; Anders Flom was born in 1834. 



CHURCH REGISTER 



325 



Flesberg 



Xicls Knudsen Grovund 

Aatuind Monsen Njos 

Uriiha Samsonsdatter 

Unni Lassesdatter 

Ole Henriksen Fadness 

Kmid Henriksen Brumborg 

Anders Sandersen 

Anders Knudsen 

John Henrikson Fadness 

Aale Thorsen Hagen 

Anders H. Odegaard 

Tege ( ?) 

Halvor Johnson Odegaarden 
Gunder Gunderson Felland 
Lisbeth Olsdatter Huset 
Tollef Gunderson Fladland 
Kittil Thoreson Svimbil 
Juul Gislesen Hamre 

Gisle, Kjersti, Gunder 
Johannes Ingebretsen Gjerde 
Ole Gregoriussen Vestendahl 
Ole Johnson Bjon 
Claus Johnson 
Jorgen Johnson 
Erik Larsen Grov 
Anfind Hansen Biestol 
Even Anderson Ostbergreie 
Tellef Aslaksen Kostvedt 
Gunder Ostensen Jordahl 
Halvor Ellefson Bradlos 
Anders Ellefsen Bradlos 
Hans Mikkelsen Lote 
Bottolf Johannesen Grinde 

Marhi, 1833, Peder, 1839, Johanne, 1834 
Aslak Hansen Halferdalen 
Aslak Knudsen Midboe 
Knud Svordesen Rogndal 
Torstein Eriksen Rokne 
Iver Nielsen 

Gunleg Torkilsen Oversaker 
Endre Rasmussen Odegaard 
Ole Olsen Loe 

Ole. 1842 
Hermund Thomassen Aarebroe 
Ole Henriksen Hippe 

Astrid, Marit, Ragnhild, Henrik 
Hans Johnson Dahle 



Sogndal 


1846 


1822 


er flyttet til 




St 


iring Prairie, Menighed 


Leganger 


1846 


1808 


skal vaere dod i 
Milwaukee 


Leganger 


1846 


1810 




Leganger 


1846 


1791 




Vos 


1846 




Synneva 


Vos 


1846 


1813 




Aal, Halld 


1846 


1807 


Aagot, 1821 


Holden 


1846 


1812 




Voss 


1846 






Aal, Halld 


1846 


1802 


Astrid 


Hafsloe 


1845 


1792 


Martha 


Tind 


1843 


1821 




Laurdal 


1846 


1805 




Moe 


1846 


1810 


Thone 


Holden 


1844 


1796 





1842 1805 Anne 



Sogndal 


1846 






Hvidesoe 


1843 


1798 




Bamble 


1846 






Bamble 


1846 






Bamble 


1846 






Hafsloe 


1845 






Viig 


1846 


1796 




Ringsaker 


1847 


1793 




Vinje 


1843 


1820 




Kinservig 


1847 




Sigtrud 


Krageroe 


1846 


1828 




Krageroe 


1846 


1829 




Kinservig 


1847 


1817 


Britha 


Leganger 


1846 


1799 


Marhi, 1806 


anne, 1834 








Hvidesoe 


1843 


1820 




Vinje 


1843 






Laurdal 


1846 


1822 




Vos 


1845 


1824 




Vos 


1845 






Laurdal 


1846 


1816 




Lyster 


1847 


1826 




Nordre Aurdal 


1847 


1813 


Ingeborg, 18( 


Leirdal 


1846 


1816 




Nordre Aurdal 1847 


1812 


Guri (Slidre) 



vider ikke hvor han er 



326 



NORWEGIAN I]\OIIGRATI0N 



Hans Sjursen Urlandvangen 

Osmund Osmundsen Kjerre 

Knud Knudsen Gilderhus Vos 1845 1824 

Mikkel Gulliksen Erdahl Hardanger 1847 1807 Thorbjor, 1809 

Sigiid 1832, Ragne 1833, Augund 1838, Torbjor, GulHk, Mikkel, Christie 
Erik Sjursen Fliseram 
Sylfest Sjursen Fliseram 
Anders Helleksen Lande 
Torger Brynildsen Morkve 
Thor Thorbjornsen Kingeland 
Ole Hermansen Alne 
Hans Pedersen Pladsen 
Peder Sylfestsen Aaberge 
Lars Osmundsen Juvet 
Johannes Sjursen Hundere 
Pernille Johannesdatter 
Peder Amund Egdetvedt 
Colbein Torkildsen Edgetvedt 
Ole Gundersen 
Nicolai Arneson Auland 
Peder Olsen Brandstad 



Vos 


1844 


1811 




Vos 


1846 


1819 




Flesberg 


1847 


1786 




Vos 


1845 


1817 




Vinje 


1847 


1807 




Hafsloe 


1847 


1808 




Halsloe 


1847 


1819 




Hafsloe 


1847 


1819 


(Sogndal) 


Laurdal 


1846 


1798 


Inbegorg 


Sogndal 


1846 


1811 




Ringsaker 


1848 


1794 




Vos 


1846 


1798 




Vos 


1846 


1816 




Moe 


1846 


1796 





1846 1799 Erika, 1847, 1807 



Biri 

Agnethe, Eline, Pauline, Otto, Martinus 
Jens Skaksen Bahuus 
Tarje Halvorson Morkve 
Erik Thorsen Svenderesde. .t 
Anders Nielsen Lie 

Martha 1838, Niels 1841, Sjur, 
Svend Larsen Lund 
Halvor Bjorgosen Huverstad 
Ole Andersen Lande 
Gullik Andersen Lande 
Jacob Jacobsen Njos 

Kari, 1844 
Tollef Halvorsen Gvale 
Sjur Johannesen Quam 
Ingebret Pedersen Erdahl 
Guttorm Johannesen Buo 
Johannes Larsen Erdahl 
Hellik Helliksen Foslieiet 

Hellik 1833, Anders 1835, Marit 1838, Christoffer 1841, Christine, Sigrid 
Johannes Anderson Tommerstigen Ringsaker 



Sogndal 


1847 


1817 




Moland 


1843 


1806 




Rollaug 


1846 


1806 




Vos 


1841 


1814 


Gunvor, 18( 


1848, Anders 


1848 






Graven 


1847 


1813 


Guri 


Hvidesoe 


1844 






Flesberg 


1847 


1826 




Flesberg 


1847 


1823 




Leganger 


1846 


1818 


Mette, 1821 


Slidre 


1847 


1829 




Sogndal 


1847 


1847 




Hardanger 


1847 


1809 


Anne 


Hardanger 


1847 


1848 


Ragnhilde 


Graven 


1847 


1809 


Catarine 


Flesberg 


1842 


1812 


Sigrid 



Kjostolf Gunderson Nseset 

Gunder, Halvor, Ole 
Peder Halvorsen Moe 

Halvor Kittilsen Naestestug 
Ole Jorgensen Hustvedt 
Ole Gundersen Brodalsgaard 
Ole Tollefsen Stolen 
Tollef 



Holden 



1844 1808 Marie 



Gjerpen 


1843 


1821 


Mari (Holdon 
kom, 1844) 


Sillejord 


1847 


1822 




Omlie 


1846 


1823 




Aal 


1847 


1801 




Herroe 


1847 




Martine 



CHURCH REGISTER 



327 



Gunhild Saamundsdatter 
Hermund Olsen Offerdal 

Ole, Anders 
Simon Atleseri Gjellum 
John Olson Herjedahl 
Ole Johnson Herjedahl 
Svend Amundsen Sinnes 
Tarald Nielsen 
Gunder Torgesen Lie 
Anders Sjursen Gilderhus 
Gregor Halvorsen Eddingsaas 
John Olsen Eide 
Sjur Storksen Reque 
Zacharias Iversen 

Johanne, Ivar 
Magne Nielsen Nsested 
Tallef Gjermundsen Gulsteen 
Niels Olsen Selseng 
Thoe Levorsen Svartedal 
Niels Larsen Skjaerve 
Bottolf Olsen Livbroen 
Johannes Jacobsen Hovden 
Jarrand Olsdatter Skrae 
Hans Amundsen Helland 
Helge Sjursen Saetre 
Halvor Halvorsen Strand 
Tarje Tollefsen Felland 
Amund Larsen Felland 
Niels Hermansen Nsese 
Bernt Mathias Taamsen 
Ole Olson Tveten 
Anders EJlingsen Quale 
Ole Siversen Kilen 
Niels Bjornson Farastad 
Ole Johannesen Skauhovd 
Ole Torkildsen Lislerud 
Amund Amundsen Braata 
Ole Nerisen Kjsere 
Thron Olsen Lindevigen 
Odd Sjursen Naatvedt 
Knud Olsen Unneland 
Olaf Laavesen Bergland 
Inga Olsdatter 
Mikkel Larsen Hole 
Michael Johannesen 
Kari Gulliksdatter Lande, Enke 
Halvor Halvorsen Strand 
Ole Larsen Quammen 
Aslak Olsen Sandager 



Laurdal 


1842 


1798 




Leirdal 


1846 


1819 


Kristi, 1814 


Urland 


1845 


1825 


Britha 


Haug 


1847 


1802 




Haug 


1847 






Hvidesoe 


1848 


1803 


Dagne, 1812 


Drangdal 


1846 


1825 




Hvidesoe 


1846 


1808 




Vos 


1843 


1798 


Jaarand 


Sillejord 


1847 


1822 




Evindsvig 


1848 


1814 




Vos 


1845 


1809 




Leganger 


1848 


1817 


Kari 


Vos 


1848 


1811 




Aal 


1847 


1816 




Sogndal 


1848 


1781 


Ingborg, 1792 


Vinje 


1848 


1818 




Vos 


1843 


1813 




Vos 


1848 


1797 


Britha, 1797 


Vinje 


1847 


1795 


Margit 


Moland 


1846 


1795 




Rennesoe 


1848 


1826 




Vos 


1848 


1779 




Aurdal 


1848 


1779 




Moe 


1846 


1818 




Moe 


1846 


1827 




Viig 


1846 


1825 




Herroe 


1848 


1821 




Vinje 


1845 


1820 




Sogndal 


1848 


1804 


Christi 


Moe 


1848 


1812 


Vinje 3 


Vinje 


1845 


1813 


5 


Vardal 


1848 


1817 


4 




1842 




2 


Flesberg 


1847 




1 


Laurdal 


1848 




5 plus 2 


Laurdal 


1848 




3 


Vos 


1845 


1817 


6 


Vos 


1845 


1809 


5 


Laurdal 


1848 




4 


Vos 


1843 




4 


Vos 


1846 




2 


Rollaug 


1848 




2 


Flesberg 


1847 




1 


Valders 


1849 






Hardanger 


1847 


1814 


3 


Hvidesoe 


1848 







328 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Lars Johannesen Quammen 
.fohn Engbretsen Londe 
IJerge Aadren Brumberg 
Syvert Olsen Berge 
Aslak Endresen Quammen 
Gunder Halvorsen Bjornstad 

Knud Knudsen Bjelde 
Bendik Andersen Haave 
Anders Nicolaison Mastad 
Helge Olsen Botnen 
Anand Bjornson 
Jacob Ingebretsen Gjerdene 
Ole Torkildsen Krogen 
Rasmus Nielsen 



Knud Bendiksen Nordstrand 
Colbein Olsen Saue 
Hans Olsen Kjorn 
Christian Tarjesen 

Tarje Aslaksen Groven 
Gunder Osmundsen Brudal 

Turi, Margit, Osmund, Eiv 
Kittil Olsen Solberg 
Knud Olsen Hostvedt 
Abraham Jacobsen Ongnevig 

Stork Tarjesen Gjierum 
Iver Gulbrandsen Ringsted 

John Sjursen Bjorgan 
Sjur Johnson Bjorgan 
Erik Mikkelsen Moland 
Kirstine Andersdatter Sharping, 
Sondre Eivindsen Groven 
Ole Ilalvorson Odegaard 
Aamund Mikkelsen Sanden 
Tollef Halvorsen Stornslie 
Halvor Mathesen Prsestholdt 

Nicolai Mikkelsen Erdahl 
(tunder Gundersen Hvideklev 

Elling Andersen Qualen 
Ole Nielsen Selseng 
Jens Pedersen Tyvang 
Peder Knudsen Rodningen 



Hardanger 


1848 


1823 




2 


Soldal 


1848 


1825 




2 


Vos 


1848 


1786 




2 


L,aurdal 


1848 






2 


Hardanger 


1847 


1805 




6 


Moland 


1846 


1807 




3 


Aurdal 








2 


Urland 


1847 


1818 




5 


Leganger 








2 


Vos 


1848 


1801 




6 


Soldal 


1848 


1786 




2 


Biroen 


1848 








Sogndal 


1844 


1803 






Lyster 


1847 






4 


Sorov i 










Danmark 


1847 


1805 




5 


Holden 


1841 






1 


Aurdal 


1848 


1824 




3 


Vos 


1837 


1805 


Anna, 1800 


Rollaug 


1848 


1787 


Jaa 


rand, 1797 


Tnomoe 


1849 






2 


Flesberg 








1 


Moland 


1846 








Moland 


1848 






5 Kari 


ind 










Hvidesoe 


1849 








Hvidesoe 


1846 








Lyngdal 


1849 


1806 




7 


Boe 








2 


Vos 


1848 








Slidre 


1849 


1812 




7 


Hvidesoe 








1 


Vos 


1849 


1798 




6 


Vos 


1849 






3 


Vos 


1845 






5 


EnkeUrland 


1849 


1824 




3 


Sillejord 


1848 


1804 




5 


Hjerdal 1848 


(Siljord) 1823 


3 Gunhil 


Hvidesoe 


1848 






3 


Moe 


1849 








Moe 


1846 








Laurdal 








1 


Graven 


1847 








Hvidesoe 


1845 








Moe 








1 


Sogndal 










Sogndal 








4 


Krageroe 


1843 




Audi 


Krageroe 


1843 









CHURCH REGISTER 



329 



Osmund Nerisen Tveten 
Peder Povelsen Schogon 

Martha Svendad Legreid 
Johannes Halvorsen 
Peder Nielsen Steengjerde 
Torger Endresen Groe 
Lars Bergessen Tillung 
Thor Eriksen Valle 
Christen Tellefsen Ulleroen 
Christian Ilermansen 
Ole Christiansen Teigen 
Jacob Jacobsen Njos 
Gjermund Aslaksen Dalen 
Niels Torjusen Grotherud 
Ole Eielsen Nxset 
Christen Olsen Saghougen 
Amund Anundsen Braata 
Tolard Amundsen 
Ole Olsen Stuen 
Andres ElHngsen Aasen 
Ole Monson Stop 
Ole Farnaes 
Anfind Anundsen 
Knud Toresen Nore 
Clemet Larsen Stalsbraaten 
Atle Simonsen Gjellum 



Hans Knudsen Ramsoe 

Tosten Eriksen Ramsoe 

Ommund Asbjornson Stengjen '^' 

Knud Knudsen Rio 

Ilalvor Brynildsen L,6nne 

Even Knudsen Raabeli 

Thorbjorn Guttomsen Viig 

Ole Gundersen 

Helge Andersen Kirkebye 

Ole Olsen Haugan 

Ommund Larsen Quammen 

Johannes Johannsen Henjom 

John Thorsen Lie 

Thor Rollefsen 

Peder Ulrik Berntsen 

Johannes Larsen Hedemarken 

? 

Anders Andersen Grimeland 



Vinjc 


1845 




Gran 


1849 




Slidre 




1 


Hardanger 


1849 




Sandsvaerd 




3 


Leganger 


1847 


2 


Vos 


1846 1816 


2 


Vos 


1847 1819 


2 


Bamble 


1849 1830 




Bamble 






Hafslo 


1837 1816 




Leganger 




2 


Moe 


1849 




Flesberg 


1849 


3 


Winje 


1843 47 Aar 


2 


Gusdal 


1849 45 Aar 


Gertrud 


Flesberg 


1850 53 Aar 


4 


Vinje 


1850 




Viig, Sogn 


1845 


Sigrid 


Vos 


1845 53 Aar 


2 
3 


Rollaug 


1842 26 Aar 






har varet medlemmer 


Urland 


1849 44 Aar 


3 datter Kari 
gift med Jo- 
hannes E. Lie 


Aadsland 


1849 46 Aar 




Aadsland 


1849 59 Aar 




Sogndal 


1849 34 Aar 


2 


Vos 


1844 60 Aar 


2 


Vos 


1849 62 Aar 


3 


Slidre 


1848 27 Aar 




Sillejord 


1843 


3 


Moland 


1850 




Hvidesoe 


1849 




Sillejord 


1842 30 Aar 


2 


Graven(Hard)1847 47 Aar 


2 


Sogn 


1850 43 Aar 


(Systrand) 2 


Hvidesoe 


1850 42 Aar 


2 


Hvidesoe 


1850 69 Aar 




Aa 


1849 49 Aar 


10 


Ringsager 


1839 28 Aar 


4 


Ringsager 




5 


Omblie 


1849 Zl Aar 





359Stenhjem? 



330 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Isak Olsen Suftestad 
Iver Nielsen Evanger 
Niels Olsen Anskjaer 
Torgrein Knudsen Tvedtene 
Vilhelm Jorgensen Hegland 
Simon Atlesen Gjellum 
Eigild Eigildsen Breiland 
Lars Josephsen Lie 
Even Halvorsen Leifstad 

Anders Torgersen Liinaas 
Nicolay Nielsen Tvete 
Erik Johannesen Yttrelie 
Gullik Gislesen Hamre 
Ole Thoresen Nore 
Niels Halvorsen Langemoe 
Peder Johansen Klungehelt 

Knud Arnesen Tvedt 
Iver Pedersen Skaar 
Anfind Stryksen Leidal 
Enke. Karen Halvorsdatter 
Jens Brottolfen Berggvam 

Lars Hovelsen Bovre 
Jens Johannesen Naese 



Den 28nde Mai, 1850. 



Nissedal 


1850 28 Aar 


4 


Vos 


1845 37 Aar 


2 


Vos 


1850 32 Aar 


7 


Nissedal 


1850 23 Aar 




Krageroe 


1850 


3 


Urland 


1845 26 Aar 


2 


Laurdal 


1845 


2 


\^os 


1850 29 Aar 


2 


Moe 


1846 28 Aar 




\-os 




3 


Flesberg 


1849 38'A Aar 


6 


Graven 


1850 25 Aar 


2 


Urland 


1845 49 Aar 




Flesberg 


1846 55 Aar 


3 


Nummdal 


1842 25 Aar 


3 plu 


Sannikedal 


1850 58 Aar 


4 


i, Hedemarken 1849 58 Aar 


5 


Flaaberg 


1849 


2 


Kindservig 


1850 25 Aar 




Graven 


1850 23 Aar 


Lysten 


Solum 


1850 50 Aar 


6 


Urland 


1845 30 Aar 


4 


Hvidesoe 




1 


Bier 


1850 43 Aar 


7 


Wiig 


1845 23 Aar 


2 


Ringsaker 




1 
2012 




J. W. C. DiETRICHSON. 



* It will have been observed that it has been impossible to make 
out some of the names, the last part of the Register having been writ- 
ten in a very illegible hand. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

The Founding of the Norwegian Settlements of Nor- 
way Grove, Spring Prairie and Bonnet 
Prairie in Dane and Columbia 
Counties, Wisconsin 

In the extreme northern part of Dane County in 
the Towns of Vienna, Windsor and Bristol, a large 
number of Norwegian immigrants, principally from 
Sogn, settled in 1846-1848, forming the nucleus of 
what in a few years came to be one of the most pros- 
perous settlements in Southern Wisconsin. The first 
Noi-wegian in this section was Svennung Nikkulson 
Dahle, who came from Flatdal in Telemarken in 1844 
to Koshkonong, and the next year purchased land 
and settled near Norway Grove in the Town of Vi- 
enna. He was then only eighteen years old. ^^^ 
Nearly all who came later were from Sogn, and 
Dahle was and remained the only native of Tele- 
marken in Vienna. In 1846 Erik Engesaeter, from Lei- 
kanger, Sogn, with family, including a son John, 
settled there. In 1847 Ole H. Farness (b. 1826) and 
wife Gertrude came from Sogn, Norway, to Norway 
Grove. Erik C. Farness ^^^ (b. 1828) also came the 

360 About 1858 he married Maline oien (b. in Aardal, Sogn, in 
1835). Svennung Dahle died in 1872, the owner of 400 acres of land. 

361 He was married to Ingeborg Grinde in 1851, Rev. A. C. Preus 
performing the ceremony. Ingeborg was the daughter of Botolf 
Grinde who came from Sogn in 1846 and settled on Liberty Prairie. 



332 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

same year. These men both acquired large farms 
there in the course of time, Ole Farness owning 530 
acres. Arne Boyum and family, five in all, from 
Outer Sogn, came in 1848 as did Knut K. Naas (b. 
1810), with wife Alau and family of four children 
from Kragero. ^^- 

The first Norwegian to buy land in Windsor 
Township was Ingebrigt Larson Tygum, from Sy- 
strand, Sogn, who immigrated in 1844, lived one 
year in Muskego, then came to Windsor in 1845. For 
two years he seems to have been the only Norwegian 
in the Town. ^^^ In 1852 Tygum sold his farm in 
Windsor and moved into Vienna Township, buying 
the farm at present occupied by the son Lars (b. 
1849). In 1847 the following settled in Windsor 
Township: Stephen Holum and family, who had 
immigrated in 1845 and lived two years at Rock 
Prairie, Sjur Grinde and family, and Truls E. Far- 
ness and wife.^^'* These families are intimately con- 
nected with the history of the Village of De Forest. 
A son of S. Holum, namely Ole S. Holum (b. 1847), 
lives on 204 acres of land adjoining the village. Ole 
Holum is a prominent democrat and has held various 
offices of trust, being e. g. Register of Deeds in 1877- 
78. •'^^ In 1848 several families moved in, among 



362 Two sons, Thomas and Isak, went to the War in 1860. Thomas 
was killed in the Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862. Knut 
Naas died in 1868; his wife in 1887. 

363 Larson married Brita (Dale) widow of Jon Eiken on Rock 
Prairie in 1847; she died in 1902, aged 89. 

364 Farness came from Balestrand Parish. 



FOUNDING OF NORWEGIAN SETTLEMENTS 33:} 

them Lars Eggum, Ole Haukness and family (ten 
in all), and Sjur S. Vangness and family. Vangness 
had immigrated in 1844, first settled in Rock County, 
then came to De Forest in 1848. He died there in 
1878. The family included a son, Sjur S. Vangness 
(b. 1816 at Vangsness in Sogn), whom we meet with 
later as a man of much influence in the township; 
he owned 264 acres of land near De Forest. ^^^ 

In Bristol Township three families settled as 
early as 1846; namely that of Botolf E. Bergum (b. 
1816), who came there in the fall of 1846, and contin- 
ued to reside there until his death in 1904 (his wife 
died in 1903; after a wedded life of fifty-four 
years), •'^'' Sjur Johnson and wife Ingeborg and one 
son, and Erik Larson and wife and several children. 

In 1848 Hans H. Quamme came up to Bristol 
from Rock Prairie, where he had settled in 1846, 
coming from Norway that year. During the next 
three years so many inunigrants came from Sogn 
and located in Norway Grove that the settlement 
came to be called ' ' Sogn. ' ' Among the many families 
who located there at that time, John Ollis of Madison, 

365 Farness died in 1885, his wife died in 1902 at the home of 
her daughter, Mrs. H. T. Lerdall, Madison, Wisconsin. 

366 As I shall not have occasion elsewhere to speak of the Town- 
ship of Burke directly south of Windsor, I may here say that the first 
Norwegian settlers were Torkel Gullikson (b. 1815) and wife Mar- 
garete, whom he had married in 1843; they came to Pleasant Spring 
in 1844 and moved up to Burke the following year. For several 
years there came no more Norwegians. 

367 They left five sons : Erik, Ellik, Peter, who live on Spring 
Prairie, Marcus (Deerfield), and John, who lives in Cottage Grove, 
and one daughter, Mrs. Peter Hagen, Spring Prairie. 



334 NORWEGIAN I]\rMIGRATION 

Wisconsin, writing in Bygdejaevining, page 341, 
names: ''Engesaether, Grinde, Fames, Tygum, Eg- 
gum, Boynm, Huseboe, Hamre, Ohnstad, Slinde, 
Svseren, Vangsness, Holum, Linde, Lidahl, Thorsnes, 
Fosse, Rendahl, Ethun, Vigdalil, Ulvestad, Roisum, 
Svalem, Fjerstad, Henjum, Jerde, Haukeness," be- 
sides all who were called Olson, Larson, Nilson, An- 
derson, Peterson, Johnson, etc. 

About ten miles northwest of Norway Grove, 
at Lodi in Columbia County, a smaller settlement of 
immigrants from Hardanger takes its beginning in 
1847-48; although one family had settled there as 
early as 1844. In that year Peder L. Odvin (b. 1819) 
and wife Kathrine Spaanem, from Ulvik in Har- 
danger, emigrated to America and went direct to 
Lodi. Ten years later they moved to Springdale 
in Dane County.^^^ In 1847 Peder Froland (see page 
336) and Ole Jone, both from Hardanger, became the 
founders of the Hardanger Settlement there. In 
1846 Ammund Himle and family from Voss immi- 
grated and settled near Lodi, but below the Dane 
County line. 

The origin of the Spring Prairie Settlement in 
Columbia County, the northern extremity of which 
is more specifically called Bonnet Prairie, dates back 
to 1845. In that year four men settled about the 
same time on Spring Prairie, namely: Odd Himle 

368 Peder Odvin and wife returned to Norway in 1893 to spend 
their declining days at Hardanger; Mrs. Odvin died there in 1895. 
In 1902 the son, L. P. odvin, visited his father in Norway and brought 
him back to his home in Verona, Dane County, where he died in 1903. 



FOUNDING OF NORWEGIAN SETTLEMENTS 335 

and Sjur S. Reque from Voss, Anders Langeteig 
from Vik in Sogn, and Knud Langeland from Racine 
County. The three first of these had families. 
Reque moved away again four years later, settling 
on Liberty Prairie, not far from Deerfield. Lange- 
land, as we have recited above, was already in 1848 
back in Racine County as one of the founders of 
Nordlyset, the first Norwegian newspaper published 
in this country; but Himle and Langeteig became 
permanent settlers. 

In his book N ordmaendene % Amerika Langeland 
gives a circumstantial account of his coming to 
Spring Prairie. He says that in August of 1845 
he and Niels Torstensen, equipping themselves 
with a cook stove, provisions, bedding, and all the 
necessities for camping out, drove with oxen and a 
wagon from Racine via Koshkonong, following 
the regular road to Madison (presumably going by 
West Koshkonong Church). But Madison did not 
attract them. He says: ''Madison had nothing re- 
markable about it except its natural beauty and the 
big Territorial Building, which looked very impos- 
ing among the small frame houses." These sons of 
the land of mountains "were scared away by the 
big hills" where the University is now situated, and 
turned east, driving almost as far as Fort "Winne- 
bago, where Amund Rosseland, a friend of Lange- 
land 's, from Norway, had recently settled. Not find- 
ing the marshes here very inviting, and failing to 
meet Rosseland at home, they decided to turn back. 



336 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Camping out over night, they drove back twenty 
miles the next day ; then upon the advice of an Amer- 
ican by the name of Young, they turned east, and 
driving on a few miles, came upon an American by 
the name of Gilbert, who was just engaged in erect- 
ing his log hut. The prairie here was to their lik- 
ing and they selected a site and in due time entered 
a claim on land. 

Langeland says there came no other Norwegians 
there that fall, but as we have seen, three others did 
locate in other parts of the prairie, about the time 
Langeland came there. That same fall Langeland 
went to Milwaukee to take out pre-emption papers 
and he stopped at Koshkonong, and told his coun- 
trymen there of the beauties of the prairies to the 
north, and a little later he wrote letters to friends 
in La Salle County, Illinois. From Milwaukee he 
says he brought back to Spring Prairie with him a 
plow, a harrow, and other farm tools. 

In the spring of 1846 Peder Froland ^^^ came up 
there from La Salle County, bringing with him two 
ox-teams and a wagon and farm tools, but he seems 
to have been the only one who came from La Salle 
County; a number of settlers, however, came from 
Boone County and Jefferson Prairie to Spring and 
Bonnet Prairie in 1847-1850. In June, 1846, Nor- 
wegian immigrants began to come in hosts from or 
via Koshkonong, says Langeland. He and Froland 
plowed about one hundred acres of prairie land for 



369 Who had come to America in 1837. 



FOUNDING OF NORWEGIAN SETTLEMENTS 337 

the newcomers that season. Two years later Lange- 
land sold his claim and moved back to Racine 
County. 

So it happened that also Spring Prairie became 
settled largely from Koshkonong, and as this was 
the period in which immigration from Sogn was tak- 
ing place on a large scale, it was especially Sognings 
who took possession also of this region; though a 
considerable number of Vossings aJso gradually 
moved in. Reverend L. S. J. Reque writes me that 
Spring Prairie is today almost exclusively a Sogn- 
ing-Vossing settlement, and the former predominate. 

The Spring Prairie Settlement, whose begin- 
nings have here been briefly sketched, rapidly ex- 
panded north to Bonnet Prairie, this part of it com- 
ing to be known as the Bonnet Prairie Settlement. 
The settlement is located principally in Otsego 
Township, but partly in Hampdon and surround- 
ing towns. The first Norwegian settlers in tliis 
locality were John Anderson and Kjel Anderson, 
who came in 1846, having immigrated from Saude, 
Telemarken, that year. 

The following is a list of the founders of the 
settlement as submitted to me by Samuel Sampson 
of Rio, Wisconsin, Mr. Sampson (b. 1839) is the 
only survivor of those who settled there at that time, 
being the son of Thorbjorn Skutle. The year to the 
right of each name indicates the yeai* of immigra- 
tion to America. All except the last two settled at 
Bonnet Prairie in 1846; these two settled there in 
1848. 



338 



NORWEGIAN IINmiGRATION 



Name 


Wife 


Where from 




John Anderson 


Anne 


Saude 


1844 


Kjel Anderson 


Ingebor 


Saude 


1844 


Hans Jorgensen Kjosvik 


Kari 


Hoi den 


1847 


Peter Halvorson Valoen 


Kirsti 


Holden 


1846 


Augon Aarness 


Ingeborg 


Saude 


1843 


Leif Johnson Dahle 


Liv Marie 


Saude 


1843 


Tollef Olson Hawkos 


Ingebor 


Bo 


1846 


Iver Vangen 


Martha 


Aurland 


1844 


Gunleik Olson Svalestuen 


Ingebor 


Saude 


1844 


Knut Grunnelson Tveten 


Margit 


Numedal 


1844 


Even Tostenson Indheggen 


Guro 


Saude 


1844 


Hans Hawkos Aase 


Anna 


Bo 


1846 


Hana Tollefson 


Helene 


Saude 


1846 


Johannes Frondal 


Ragnild 


Aurland 


1845 


Eilif Olson 


Johanna 


Sogn 


1845 


Mikkel Knutson 




Sogn 


1845 


Johannes Johanneson Gvaale 


Kari 


Sando 


1845 


Halvor Shelby 


Ingri 


Saude 


1848 


Thorbjorn Sampson Skutle 


Anna 


Voss 


1848 



Since the above was written I have received 
from Reverend L. S. J. Reque of Morrisonville, Wis- 
consin, further facts relative to the earliest settlers 
there. The earliest records of the Bonnet Prairie 
Church kept by Reverend A. C. Preus show that the 
testimonial of emigration was issued to ''Eivind 
T. Indla?ggen" April 5, 1843, to 'Mohannes Johanne- 
sen" April 10th, 1843, to John Anderson and wife 
May 3d and 6th, 1843, to ''Hans Olsen Haukaas" 
May 7th, 1843. Also to ''Thorbjorn Samsonsen and 
wife Anna EUingsdatter" May 13th, 1844. As it is 
probable that these emigrated at the time of issue 
of the testimonial of emigration the table should 
be corrected with reference to these names. Dur- 
ing the intervening three years most of the above 



FOUNDING OF NORWEGIAN SETTLEMENTS 339 

had lived in Boone County, Illinois, whither also 
some of the later settlers came en route to Bonnet 
Prairie. Thorbjorn Skutle and family who came 
from Voss, sailing on the ship Hercules, located 
first at Jefferson Prairie. T. Skutle and his wife 
both died in 1897, age 88 and 91 respectively. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

Blue Mounds in Western Dane County, Wisconsin 

The extensive Norwegian settlement in Western 
Dane County, ordinarily referred to as Blue Mounds 
from the ''blue mounds" in the township of that 
name, was founded in 1846. Three families had, 
however, located there as early as 1844, namely those 
of Thor Aase, Peder Dusterud, and Lars P. Duste- 
rud. Thor Aase, with wife Martha, five sons and two 
daughters,-'''*^ settled on section ten in Springdale; 
they came from Sogn in 1843 and had lived one year 
at Wiota. Peder Dusterud and wife and family set- 
tled on section 33 in Blue Mounds and the son Lars 
Dusterud and wife located on section 27, both in Blue 
Mounds Township. These two came from Rock Run, 
Illinois, where they had located in 1842, immigrating 
from Vaegli, Numedal.^^^ They had also worked for 
some time in the Dodgeville, Wis., lead mines. 

In 1846 a company of eleven persons arrived 
from Racine County ; they were the following : Tore 
Toreson Spaanem, Halvor and Nils H. Grasdalen, 
John I. Berge and wife Julia and one cliild, his 
sister Mrs. Knut Sorenson Kvisterud, Tosten 
Thompson Rue, Ole T. Garden, Ole Kvisterud, and 



370 The children were Ivar (b. 1818), Lasse, Hermund, Talak, 
John, Synneva, and Britha. 

371 Lars Dusterud auvl wife are still living at Mt. Iloreb. 



BLUE MOUNDS 341 

Ole Sjutvett. Knut S. Kvisterud, who had just be- 
fore this gone to Mineral Point and secured work 
there, came to Blue Mounds in 1848. John Thomp- 
son later was more generally called ''Snow-slioe 
Thompson" from the fact that he carried the U. S. 
mail over the Sierra Nevada Mountains for twenty 
years (1856-1876), walking on skis. 

All these came from Muskego, Wisconsin, whith- 
er they had immigrated from Tin, Telemarken. 
Spaanem and Halvor Grasdalen had come there in 
1841, Knut Kvisterud and wife in 1843, and Berge 
in 1845. The Rue family had come from Norway, 
as we have seen, in 1839 (see above page 125). In 
1846 the Town of Primrose, immediately south of 
Springdale, also received its first Norwegian set- 
tlers, namely. Christian Hendrickson, wife Maria 
and three children, Caroline, Henry, and Charles. 
He had emigrated from Lier, Norway, in 1842, and 
worked four years in the lead mines at Wiota to 
pay his passage from Norway. Mr. Hendrickson 
drove from Wiota to Primrose with oxen, all his pos- 
sessions being then a wagon, a cow, and seventy- 
five cents. He lived eight years in the log hut first 
erected and built a stone structure in 1855. 

The next arrivals to Blue Mounds were Erik 
Solvi, who came from Sogn in 1847, and lived suc- 
cessively in Springdale, Vermont, and Blue Mounds, 
and Gullik Svensrud and family from Vaegli, Nume- 
dal, who had immigrated in 1844, ^^^ and first located 

372 The party with which they came left Drammen April 20th 
and landed at Quebec June 20th; they arrived at Rock Prairie on 



342 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

on Rock Prairie. It was also in 1847 that the first 
immigrant from Valders arrived in Blue Mounds; 
this was Ragnild Fadnes who in 1851 married Ever 
Halsten. She was born in North Aurdal in 1826; 
as near as I am able to determine she was the only 
member of the family who came at the time. 

During 1846-1847 other localities, Wiota, West- 
ern Koshkonong, Spring Prairie and Norway Grove 
had claimed a considerable portion of the immi- 
grants. But in 1848 they began to come in in large 
numbers in the townships of western Dane County 
and neighboring parts of Iowa County. To Prim- 
rose the following came in that year: Nils Skogen, 
Salve Jorgenson, and Nils Einarson. To PeiTy: 
Ole 0. Bakken and wife Anne (Bergum) and two 
sons (Ole and Tideman) from Valders. This was 
the first Norwegian family to locate permanently in 
Perry; Bakken bought the claim of a "squatter" 
named Andreas Olson, who was therefore the earli- 
est Norwegian in the township. Later in the same 
year came Lars Langemyr from Christiania, Norway, 
Torger T. Tvedt from Aamli in Nedenses, Reiar Aar- 
hus from Telemarken, Halvor 0. Milesten from 
Hadeland, and Lars Halvorson and Hans Johnson 
from Drangedal. 

The arrivals of 1848 were Ole Barton, wife Inge- 
borg and son Ole, Gulbrand Elseberg, ^^-^ wife Inge- 



July 4th. The family included several children; a daughter Gunhild 
(b. 1837), married Halvor Halvorson of Mt. Horeb in 1856. 

373 Elseberg not long afterwards started for Manitowoc to visit 
a brother, who had just come there, and was never heard from again. 



BLUE MOUNDS 343 

borg and two daughters, Christian 0. Skogen, Ole 
0. Braaten and Nils 0. Belgum; and in 1849: Knud 
Larson, Anders Lundene, Iver Halstein, Iver Lund, 
Ole Jelle, Sr., and Tore Maanem, all of whom were 
from Valders, mostly from North Aurdal. Tollef 
S. Anmarksrud and wife Karen came to Koshkonong 
the latter year, but he also removed to Blue Mounds 
in 1850. During the next few years immigration 
to the various townships of western Dane County 
was rapid. For the fall of 1849 and in 1850 are to 
be mentioned, e. g. the following arrivals in Spring- 
dale Township : Harald and Arne Hoff, Ole and As- 
lak Lee, Levor Lien, Ole Thompson Brenden, Anders, 
Jolin and KJnut Lunde, Knut J. Lindelien, Harald 
Stugaard, Michel Kolskett and Erik 0. Skinrud ; sev- 
eral of these had large families. To Blue Mounds 
Township came: Erik Engen, Ole Boley, wife and 
four children, and Arne Roste, with family of eleven 
children ; all those named here came from Valders. ^^"^ 
From Sogn came Ole A. Grinde and Ole Menes, 
the latter remaining, however, two years in Nor- 
way Grove before coming to Blue Mounds. Mich- 
ael Johnson (b. 1832 in Leikanger, Norway) emi- 
grated to America in 1853, located first in Windsor, 
then removed to Vienna, finally settled permanently 
in Springdale in 1856. His parents, Jon Michelson 
Dahlbotten and wife Randi, and his sister Martha ^''^ 
and younger brother Botolf came to America in 

374 Boley and Eoste were from South Aurdal. 

375 Martha married Ole O. Flom in 1854. Botolf is B. J. Bor- 
laug, well-known capitalist and banker of Kenyon, Minnesota. ITie 



344 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

1854. Mr. Johnson became a prosperous farmer and 
stock-raiser, his farm of 400 acres being one of the 
finest in that part of the state. He took an active 
part in church and school affairs and was for many 
years a member of the governing body (Kirkeraad) 
of the Noi-wegian Lutheran Evangelical Synod 
of America. He held many positions of trust in the 
town and the county, was a member of the State 
Legislature for three consecutive terms, 1874-75-76, 
and for years a well-known figure in the politics of 
the state. Mr. Johnson lived in Mt. Horeb since 
1894; he died in 1908, leaving a widow and seven 
children. 

In Primrose and Perry the Norwegians also set- 
tled extensively in 1849-1850. Among those who 
arrived in the former year were Gumiuf and Ole 
Tollefsen from Ssetersdalen, who as we have seen 
above, page 281, had immigrated to Muskego in 
1845. Others who came to Primrose that year were 
G. and Ole Danielson ^''^ from Telemarken, Leif Ol- 
son, Kittil Moland, Ole Anderson and Peter P. Hasle- 
rud. Tollefson relates how he became the possessor 
of his quarter section in Primrose as follows : ^"^"^ 

As I wished to own land of my own as soon as possible, 
I went to Primrose in 1849. Here I met Niels Einarson. 
There was enough of land, but how to get the number of 
what I selected, was the question. After much search we 
family had moved from Aurland to Borlang in f'eios, Leikanger 
Parish, where the children were all born. 

376 Ole Danielson had lived in Illinois since he came from Norway 
in 1846. 

377 The citation is from Langeland, page 73. 



BLUE MOUNDS 345 

found a large oak a short distance east from where Norman 
Randal lives. On this tree was clearly to be seen the fol- 
lowing letters and numbers : N. W. 14, S. 23, T. 5, N. R. 
6 E. There was neither pen nor paper to get without go- 
ing many miles, and something had to be done at once. 
I borrowed an axe of Emerson, cut down a little poplar, 
and, after having cut it flat on both sides, so that it be- 
came quite thin, I took my pocket knife and cut into it 
the letters and numbers just as they were in the tree. 
With this poplar stuck under my arm I went to the land- 
office and laid the stick and the money on the table, to 
the official 's amusement. They understood the descrip- 
tion and I got the land. ^'^^ 

During 1850 came Mrs. Ole Baker with son P. 0. 
Baker (b. 1838), Mons Ness, Elling Stamn, Ole 
Skuldt and Lars Halvorson from Hallingdal, Knut 
and Jens Olson from Stavanger, Lars L. Kolve and 
family from Voss and Knut Baardson (Bowerson) 
and family from Saetersdalen. During 1853 to 1855 
Norwegians came in still greater numbers, writes 
Reverend Hoverstad. 

About twenty Norwegians settled in Perry in 
1849; they were: Torger Hastvedt, Hans J. Dahle, 
Ole Gangsei and Jacob Aanhus from Telemarken, 
Andreas Stutelien and Jul Haavernd, wife and eight 
children from Valders, and Anders Sanderson from 
Hallingdal. After 1849 Norwegians came in in large 
numbers, settling up the town rapidly. ^^^ I shall 

378 Tollefson says that at Clinton he worked for a Mr. Sherwood 
a while; he cut 600 rails for the loan of the latter 's oxen and wagon 
with which to bring his parents from Muskego to Kock County. 

379 Among them were Knut Grimstvedt and Ole Hastvedt from 
Telemarken. 



346 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

mention here only Onon Bjornson Dahle (b. 1823) 
from Nissedal, who settled in Perry in 1853, and 
Christian Evanson (b. 1819) from Valders, and wife 
Ragnild from Numedal, who came there in 1854. ^^^ 
Dr. Evans tells me that Ragnild Evanson (maiden 
name Ragnild Brekke) was born in Numedal, Nor- 
way, in 1819, and after her marriage to Christian Ev- 
anson, immigrated to America in company with her 
brother Lars N. Brekke (who for many years resid- 
ed and conducted a grocery store in Madison, Wis.) 
in the year 1848, preceding her husband by about 
five years. They came by sailing vessel, and were 
sixteen weeks on the voyage, having been grounded 
on a rock off the coast of England and were obliged 
to wait repairs. After landing in New York they 
came by Erie canal and the lakes to Milwaukee, 
Wis., then to near Stoughton, Wis., and later to 
Madison, where she met her husband five years later. 
From Madison they moved to Perry, Dane County, 
and settled on section twenty-three and remained 
there until their death.^^* 0. B. Dahle, who had 
been a school teacher in Nissedal, left Norway in 
company with a cousin, Knut Dahl, in 1848. They 
first came to Koshkonong, where the former taught 



380 Jens P. Tyvand (b. 1817) who had emigrated from Sannikedal 
in 1843 to Lisbon, 111., and removed to Stoughton, Wis., in 1847, set- 
tling in Pleasant Spring, located in Perry in 1854. 

381 Mrs. Evanson died in 1894 and Mr. Evanson in 1897, sur- 
vived by two children, Anne and Niels (Dr. N. E. Evans of Mt. 
Horeb). C. Evanson was a successful farmer, owning 279 acres of 
land; he also conducted a store at Perry after 1874. 



BLUE MOUNDS 347 

parochial school for two years. They went to Cali- 
fornia in 1850 in search of gold as so many others. 
Having been unusually successful in the gold mines, 
they returned in 1853, and Onon Dahle bought a farm 
in Perry, on which he founded the village of Daley- 
ville, beginning at the same time there a mercantile 
business. Here he amassed a fortune, retired and 
moved to Mt. Horeb in 1897. In 1854 Dahle married 
Betsey Nelson, daughter of Hermo N. Tufte of Ra- 
cine County, and sister of the well-known lay evan- 
gelist, Elling Eielson. Mr. Dahle always took an ac- 
tive interest in public affairs and in the work of the 
Lutheran Church of which he is a member. He died 
in July, 1905, his wife having died in February of 
the same year. •'^" 

We shall close tliis chapter with a word about 
the first Norwegians in Madison, Wisconsin. It is 
not until 1850 that Norwegians began to locate in 
Madison in considerable numbers. However, there 
were a few there before that. As near as I can find 
out, Ole Torgeson, Ole 0. Flom, Ole Lenvick, and 
Halvor N. Hauge, all of whom came to Madison in 
1844, were the first Norwegians in Madison. All 
four of these worked for a printer by the name of 
Daniel Holt. Ole Flom, as we have seen, had come 
from Norway with his parents that summer in the 
first party that left Aurland, Sogn. He remained in 
Madison till 1847 when he returned to his father's 

382 They left four children : H. B. Dahle, one time member of 
Congress, J. T. Dahle (who died in 1908), Henry L. Dahle, all of 
Mt. Horeb, and Mrs. James A. Peterson, Minneapolis. 



348 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

farm at Door Creek, •'^^ Halvor Hauge had come 
from Norway with his parents in the summer of 
1844 ; the family had located in the Town of Chris- 
tiana. Halvor went to California in 1848 where he 
remained several years, returning then to Kosh- 
konong. Ole Torgerson had emigrated from Nor- 
way in 1844, coming directly to Madison, where he 
continued to live till his death in 1900. He published 
during 1850 there a Norwegian paper in the in- 
terests of the Wliig party, but as this was not a 
paying enterprise he sold his types to Knut Lange- 
land, who soon after began the issue of Maaneds- 
tidende in Janesville, having previously published 
Nordlyset and Deniokraten in Muskego. Among 
other Norwegians in Madison in the early days were : 
Anne Vik, who worked for Dr. Collins during 
1845 ; ^^^ in 1846 she married Halvor Bjoin, a Kosh- 
konong pioneer. In July, 1846, Hans Christianson 
from Laerdal, Sogn, came to Madison; he, however, 
soon removed to Blooming Grove, where he located 
permanently. ^^^ Halvor Gabriel immigrated from 
Haugesund in 1848, coming direct to Madison, where 
he continued to live until 1877; he then moved to 
Sun Prairie and in 1893 to Fort Atkinson, where he 
died in 1897. Among the subscribers to Nordlyset 
and Deniokraten, 1848-1850, appear the names of 
three residents of Madison, namely: Eric Ander- 

383 Flom was ^-ith Dr. Collins during 1846. 

384 As we have seen, Knud Langeland and Niels Torstenson 
passed through Madison in 1845. 

385 He died there a few years ago. 



BLUE MOUNDS 349 

son, ^^^ Lars Johnson, and William Anderson. 
Finally, when the Bethel Congregation was organ- 
ized in 1855 the following appear as charter mem- 
bers: Ole Torgerson, Mrs. Ole Torgerson, Hans 01- 
sen, Mr. Eriekson, Olaf Olson, Haakon Larson, Nels 
Peterson, Lars Nelson, Ole Lawrence, Halle Steens- 
land, Eline Hoel, Anne Nilson, Ingeborg Olson and 
Anne Olson, Lars Nelson (Brekke) had come there in 
1848 from Numedal,^^^ coming direct to Madison. Mr. 
Nelson was well and favorably known as the owner 
of a grocery store on West Main Street for many 
years. Of the other persons mentioned above only 
Haakon Larson and Halle Steensland are now liv- 
ing. The latter has always held a prominent place 
in the financial history of the capital and in general 
in the upbuilding of the city. He has always been 
a staunch member of the Bethel Church, and was 
one of the leaders in the organization of the Nor- 
wegian-American Pioneer Association, of which he 
was president in 1903-05. 



386 Erik Anderson had come to America with his parents in 
1839 and lived in Chicago till 1845 (see p. 232). Then they moved to 
McHenry County, Illinois. In 1847 Erik went to Muskego, where 
he engaged as compositor in the oflBce of Nordlyset, setting the 
type for the first number. In 1848 he went to Madison and began 
clerking in a general store. He settled as a farmer in Winneshiek 
County, Iowa, in 1850. 

387 See page 346 above. 



CHAPTER XL 

The Hardanger Settlement in Lee and De Kalh 
Counties, Illinois. Big Grove in Kendall 
County and Nettle Creek in Grun- 
dy County, Illinois. 

Although Hardanger has contributed a relative- 
ly small proportion of the American immigrant pop- 
ulation from Norway, several of the earliest ar- 
rivals were from that province and its sons occupy 
today a prominent place in Norwegian American his- 
tory. It has been shown above, chapters IX and X, 
that several members of the party who came in 1836, 
as also of that of 1837, were natives of Hardanger; 
and in the Chicago colony in 1839 we met with sev- 
eral natives of that province. In 1839 a consider- 
able number left Hardanger, especially from Ulvik 
Parish, as we learn from N ordmandsforhundet, 1909, 
page 175. Among these were the brothers Anders 
and Johan Vik from Eidfjord in Hardanger. The 
two brothers first went to Wiota, where they se- 
cured work in the lead mines. In 1844 John Vik 
(Week) went to Dodgeville, where he established 
himself as a shoemaker, entering into partnership 
with Johan Lee from Numedal. Later he went to 
Portage County, Wisconsin, where he prospered and 
was for over a decade a dominant power in the lum- 
ber trade of northern Wisconsin. ^^* 



THE HARD ANGER SETTLEMENT 351 

Among the iinniigrants who had come from 
Hardanger, Parish of Ullensvang, in 1836, we men- 
tioned Ammund Helgeson Maakestad above, page 95. 
Maakestad dropped the family name in this coun- 
try and called himself Ommon Hilleson. For a 
little over a year he was a coast sailor; then he de- 
cided to go west and secure land where his coun- 
trymen had settled. This he did, but not in the 
usual way, for Hilleson walked the whole distance 
from New York to Chicago. Tliis was in 1837. ^^' 

From Chicago he directed his steps farther 
west; he did not, however, go to the settlement 
founded several years before, but pushed on as far 
as Lee Center in the County of Lee. ^^° Here he 
secured work, saved some money, and bought a 
homestead in Bradford Township, and erected there- 
on a sod house. Soon after he married Catherine 
Reinhart, daughter of a German pioneer, recently 
moved in. 

For ten years Hilleson was the only Norwegian 
settler in the county, but in 1847 there arrived in 
response to letters from Hilleson, a considerable 
party from Hardanger. These left Sorfjorden in 
Hardanger, and embarked in May at Bergen in the 



388 These facta gathered from an article by L. J. Erdall in 
Amcrika for Sejjtember 18, 1901. The brother, Anders Vik (Andrew 
Week), went to California in 1849. 

389 As Keverend J. Nordby, Lee, Illinois, informs me. 

390 Strand relates an experience which Hilleson had between 
Chicago and Lee Center and which would seem to indicate that he 
had intended to go to La Salle County. 



352 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

sailing vessel Juno, which brought them to New 
York in a little over four weeks, a remarkable record 
for that time.^^^ Mr. T. M. Newton (Torgels Knut- 
son) says, when we came to Buffalo we met an old 
man who was returning to Norway. He advised us 
to go back at once, saying America was not a fit 
place for respectable people to live in, it was a place 
for thieves and robbers. The party consisted of the 
following persons: Lars Larsen Roisetter (Riset- 
ter), Lars Olson Espe, Lars Helgeson Maakestad, 
Gjertrud H. Lonning, Helge H. Maaketad (who died 
in 1854), Ingeborg H. Maakestad, Torgels Knudson 
Maakestad, Sjur Sjurson Bleie (Bly) and Lars Lar- 
son Bly. They were met at Chicago by Ommon 
Hilleson; Lars Bly remained in Chicago, the rest 
started for Lee County, stopping a short time at 
Norway, La Salle County, thereupon all but Inge- 
borg Maakestad drove to Hilleson 's home in Lee 
County.^^2 Most of them settled in Bradford Town- 
ship, but Lars Risetter (born 1827 in Ullensvang) 
bought eighty acres of land in Sublette Township, 
whither other subsequent immigrants from Hardan- 
ger also soon moved. Soon after arriving, Risetter 
and Gjertrud Lonning were married in the first house 
built by a Norwegian in Lee County, at the home of 
Ommon Hilleson. Lars Espe and Lars Risetter 



391 T. M. Newton says the journey took only three weeks; others 
say, four. Newton was from Kinservig. 

392 The journey was made with oxen and lumber wagon. Inger 
Maakestad remained at Norway for a time; she married Lars Espe 
soon after. 



THE IIARDANGER SETTLEMENT 353 

were the first two of the party to build a log cabin. 

Mr. Newton tells that two young men came from 
La Salle County about the same time and bought a 
piece of land in Franklin Grove about two miles and 
a, half from where he lived. ''They lived in a log 
cabin on their place," he says. **One night about 
two months after we arrived, they were both mur- 
dered. The same day I had tried to persuade one 
of them to stay with me, but he felt it necessary to 
be at home. Their heads had been split open with 
an ax. I then thought of what the old gentleman 
had tried to tell us and heartily wished myself back 
in Norway." 

During the years 1848 no immigrants left Hard- 
anger for America, and Lee County received no set- 
tlers directly from Norway. In 1849, however, thir- 
ty-two emigrated from Ulvik, but none of these seem 
to have come to the settlement. In 1850 there was 
one accession, namely, Amund Lonning, who came 
directly to his brother-in-law, Lars Risetter, in Sub- 
lette Township. He worked in the harvest the first 
season for Thomas Fessenden for $11.00 a month, 
bought a quarter section in Willow Creek Township 
in 1852, being the first Norwegian to settle there. 
In 1857 Lars Risetter also moved into Willow Creek 
Township, where he has since lived.^^^ 

Of the rest Torgels Maakestad, who adopted 
the name T. M. Newton (Knutson), is still living, his 



393 Mrs. Kisetter died in 1897 ; Mr. Risetter is still living. His 
two sons, Lewis and Holden, occupy the homestead with him. 



354 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

home being at Grinnell, Iowa. Sjur Bleien lives at 
the Old People's Home, Stoughton, Wisconsin. 

In 1851 the following arrived from Ullensvang, 
Hardanger, and located in the settlement: Jacob 
0. Eogde (b. 1828), Haaken L. Kisetter and wife 
Maria (Hildal), Ilaldor Nilsen Hovland, and Agatha 
Espe, a sister of Lars Espe. Eogde purchased 
eighty acres of land in Bradford Township in 1854 
and in 1855 he married Else Bly from Hardanger, 
who had come to America in 1854.^^"* Haakon Riset- 
ter settled in Ogle County immediately north of Lee 
County. Of those who arrived in subsequent years 
many settled across the county line in De Kalb 
County, and in a few years there had sprung up a 
thriving and prosperous community. At present 
the Bradford Norwegian Evangelical Congregation 
of Lee numbers 300 adult members. The center of 
the settlement is about four miles south of Franklin 
Grove. 

Immediately east of De Kalb and the northern 
part of La Salle County lies Kendall County, into 
which extends a northeastern branch of the original 
Fox River Settlement, located chiefly in Big Grove 
Township; the village of Newark lies within its 



394 C. Christopher of Gruver, Iowa, who has kindly given me 
many of the facts relative to the immigration from Hardanger, 
names the following as arriving in Lee County in 1854 ; Lars N. 
Rogdo and wife Angar W. Sandvasn, Wigleik W. Risetter, Helle 
P. Bly and wife Torbjor (Skare), Samson S. Sandvam and wife 
Baogga H. Maakestad. The last three and Lars Rogde died the 
same year. 



THE HARDANGER SETTLEMENT 355 

boundaries. The first Norwegian to settle in the 
village of Newark was Ole Olson Hetletvedt, as we 
have observed above. Ole Hetletvedt, or Medlepeint 
as he was called, was bom in August, 1797, and was, 
as we know, one of the members of the sloop party. 
Of his first years in this country we have already 
spoken. He came to Newark in 1839 ; there he lived 
till his death in 1854. The next settlers in Newark 
were Herman Osmonson and Knut W. Tysland, both 
of whom also located there in 1838. 

The first Norwegian settler at Lisbon was John 
Hill (Hidle) from Fjeldberg in Sondhordland, Nor- 
way. He came to America in 1836, ^^^ going direct to 
La Salle County. Among the immigrants of that year 
were also Anders A^nderson Aasen and wife Olena 
and family from Tysvaer Parish, a little south of 
Haugesund. The family included a daughter Su- 
sanna, (born 1822), who was married to John Hill 
in 1844. The Aasen family lived in l^endall, New 
York, for two years, then in 1838 moved to La Salle 
County, Hlinois. In 1839 John Hill located at Lis- 
bon, and he was thus the first Norwegian to settle 
here, whither a considerable number later moved. ^^^ 
About 1846 Sjur Larson came there from Skaanevik, 
Norway; Lars Chelley (Kjelle) came in 1847. 

The Norwegians did not begin to come in exten- 
sively to Lisbon before 1850. Mrs. Austin Osmond, 

395 Lars Bo and Michael B6 came at the same time. 

396 John Hill died in 1892, but Mrs. Susanne Hill is still living 
with her daughter, Mrs. Austin Osmond (b. 1S4.'5), in Morris, Grundy 
County, Illinois. 



356 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

oldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Hill, who is 
now living in Morris, Grundy County, tells me that 
she was the only Norwegian child in school at Lis- 
bon when she first began to attend, but later there 
gradually came more. At Newark several Norwe- 
gians had already begun to move on. Goodman 
Halvorson (b. 1821) and wife Martha Grindheim 
from Etne Parish in Sondhordland, came to America 
in 1847 and purchased land in Fox Township, Ken- 
dall County; he erected his log cabin there in the 
spring of 1848. Halvorson is still living on the old 
homestead which, however, he leases to other parties. 
Osmund Tutland from Hjelmeland in Ryfylke, and 
wife Malinda from Aardal in Ryfylle and two child- 
ren had come to Mission Township, La Salle County, 
in 1836; a daughter, Mrs. Anna Hegglund (b. 1842) 
is at present living in Newark. Tutland became, in 
1854, the founder of the Norwegian colony at Nor- 
way, Benton County, lowa.^^'' 

Among the old pioneers of Lisbon was also 
Henry Munson from Voss, but I am not able to give 
the year of his arrival. Munson died in 1907, 
being over ninety years old. Wier Sjurson Weeks 
(born in Skaanevik in 1812), and wife Synneva and 
two children emigrated in 1846; after much hard- 
ship, and sickness in the family, through which they 
lost the two daughters, they arrived at Lisbon late 
in 1846. Here Weeks worked at first at the trade 

397 Lars Fruland of Newark is a son of Nils Froland, who 
emigrated from Samnanger, near Bergen, in 1837, settling in La 
Salle County. 



THE HARDANGER SETTLEMENT 357 

of a carpeuter. In 1848 he bought eighty acres 
of land on North Prairie, five miles north of Lis- 
bon.^^^ Here he settled permanently, prospered, 
and became an influential citizen and active member 
of the Lutheran Church of North Prairie. Mr. 
Weeks died in February, 1900, at the age of eighty- 
seven; his wife lived till 1904, reaching the age of 
ninety-four. A name most closely associated with 
the early annals of Newark is that of Torris John- 
son (b. in Skaanevik 1837), who came to America 
with his grandfather Torris Torison in 1848. ^^' 
Having arrived at Chicago, they went to Calumet, 
twenty miles south of Chicago, to Halstein Torison, 
who was an uncle of Torris Johnson. There John- 
son remained till 1851, when he located in Kendall 
County. Mr. Johnson served in the war, being 
promoted to sergeant; after the war he returned to 
Newark. In 1865 he married Elizabeth Ryerson, 
bom in Stavanger, Norway; they have had six child- 
ren. Mr. Johnson is still living, his home being in 
Newark. 

Although E. S. Holland (b. 1834) of Big Grove 
Township, did not settle in Kendall County before 
1866, he belongs to the earlier pioneers now resident 
there, having come to this country with his parents 
in 1846. In 1854 he settled in York Township, 
Green County, "Wisconsin, where he married Jo- 
hanne Chantland the following year. In 1866 they 

398 Mr. Strand has given a very complete sketch of W. S. Weeks 
to which I am indebted for these facts. 

399 Hie parents died in Norway when he was a child; a brother 
and sister also came to America at the same time. 



358 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

removed to Kendall County, Illinois/"" Mr. Hol- 
land has been especially active in the work of the 
church, and has been trustee and treasurer of Pleas- 
ant View Luther College since its organization. 

The name of Nels 0. Cassem occupies a prom- 
inent place in the history of the settlement as of 
that of Kendall County in general. Born in 1829 
about seven miles east of the city of Stavanger, 
Norway, he emigrated in 1849. Coming to Illinois he 
settled in Fox Township, Kendall County, in July 
of that year. Here he purchased land and began 
farming, an occupation which he prospered in to 
an unusual degree, his estate being estimated at a 
little over one million dollars upon his death in 
1904.^*°^ ''When he came to Illinois," writes his son, 
"he found work on the tow-path of the old Illinois 
and Michigan Canal, at fifty cents per day. During 
this time he formed the habit of saving, that was 
the unerring guide of all his future life." Randall 
Cassem defines the principal causes of his father's 
success as: 

' ' Health ; industrious habits formed in youth ; the fact 
that money came hard earned at first, thus teaching: him 
the value of the dollar; courage and self-reliance; knowing 



400 Mrs. Holland died in 1884 and Mr. Holland married Christina 
Peterson of Skien, Norway, in 1885. 

401 Cassem married Margaret Fritz in 1851; she died in 1872. 
There are five children : Eandall Cassem, attorney at Aurora, 111. ; 
Mrs. Olive J. Osmondson of Seward Township, Kendall County; Oscar 
E. Cassem, Mitchell, South Dakota; Mrs. Margaret Olson, Aurora, 
Illinois; and Mrs. Anna O. Rood, Chicago, Illinois. 



THE HARDANGER SETTLEMENT 359 

the value of little things; the practice of self-denial and 
rigid economy; never striving after extravagtmt profits in 
any of his undertakings. To all of this we may add, his 
high sense of honor, his unimpeachable integrity that, as 
those who knew him testify, never permitted him to be other 
than absolutely fair and just in all his dealings and finan- 
cial transactions with others. ' ' ^'^^^^ 

Among those who immigrated in 1844 and 
located in Chicago was also Anders K. Vetti 
from Vettigjipld, Norway. He lived in Chicago 
until about 1849, '*°^ when he bought a farm at 
Yorkville Prairie in Kendall County. He mar- 
ried Anna Martha Ortzland in 1850 and lived 
there till his death in 1875. Mr. Vetti was a 
man of strong character and unusual intellectual 
endowments. He wielded much influence politically 
in his community, and enjoyed in a high degree the 
confidence of those who knew him. An obituary 
notice says of him: his truest and most enduring 
monument will be the good resulting from his labor 
in the cause of universal education, in untiring op- 
position to the superstitious observance of cere- 
monies incompatible with the spirit and the progress 
of the age, and in his hatred of all forms of political 
oppression.'*^'* 



404 The words ' ' universal education ' ' contain a reference to his 
fight for the common schools. 

402 Kari Melhus of Newark, Illinois, who came to America about 
1852, is said to be the oldest Norwegian woman in America. She 
was born in Hjelmeland Parish, Ryfylke, in 1804. 

403 A. K. Vetti 's oldest daughter, Mrs. Samuel Mather (b. 1853) 
of Springdale, Linn County, Iowa, says that it was in 1849, or 1850 
perhaps, but she is not certain which. 



360 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

A few miles south of Lisbon, across the Grundy 
County line, a settlement was founded in 1846. The 
county had been completely settled by Americans 
already, but Norwegians bought these out and grad- 
ually supplanted them, exactly as they began doing 
a decade later at Saratoga in Grundy County, and 
have done still later in the city of Morris in the 
same county. The settlement is located in Nettle 
Creek Township. The first arrivals were Rasmus 
Scheldal, Ole Torstal, Paul Thompson, Michael 
Erickson, Simon Frye, John Wing, Lars Scheldal, 
Ben Hall, Ben Thornton, John Peterson, G. E. 
Grundstad, William and Samuel Hage. Several of 
these men had families; they came mostly from 
Skaanevik; all came between 1846 and 1848. In 1849 
Halvord Rygh, Sr., and family of seven, and Sjur 
Nelson, wife, Jennie, and family, came from Norway 
and located there. Several of these men later moved 
away, as Paul Thompson, Michael Erickson, Rasmus 
Scheldal, and Ole Tvistal, who went to Story County, 
Iowa, while some members of the Rygh and Wing 
families went to Goodhue County, Minnesota, 1856. 
Sjur Haugen and family moved up to Helmar, Ken- 
dall County, in 1855. ^°5 

With this brief survey of the founding of these 
eastern extensions of the Fox River Settlement, we 
shall leave Kendall and Grundy Counties. The his- 
tory of these settlements takes its beginnings at the 

405 The latter family included a son Nels (b. 1840), who is Nels 
S. Nelson of Helmar, well known as a successful farmer and a 
Republican leader in Kendall County. 



THE HARDANGER SETTLEMENT 361 

very close of the period we are here considering. 
Their fuller discussion belongs to the history of the 
immigration of the following decade.'*°^ 



406 Individual settlers and single families had located in various 
towns in northern Illinois during the later thirties and forties. I 
shall name here Severt S. Helland and wife Ingeborg who immi- 
grated in 1836 and settled at Woodstock, Illinois. Helland (b. 1828) 
came from Gjerdevig in Fjeldbjerg Parish; his wife was born 1825 
at Helland in Etne Parish. They moved to Chicago in 1855 and La 
1857 settled near Slater, Iowa. 



CHAPTER XLl 

The First Norwegian Pioneers in Northeastern Iowa 

In this chapter I shall give a brief account of 
the coming of Norwegians into northeastern Iowa 
and their founding of settlements there between 
1846 and 1851. We are near the close of the period 
which this volume deals with. The founding of set- 
tlements in Iowa in 1849-50 is but a part of a larger 
movement now beginning, which, in the course of a 
few years, resulted in the establishment of numerous 
settlements in Wisconsin, Iowa, and southeastern 
Minnesota. '*°'' These settlements were founded 
in general through internal migration away from the 
older settlements in Racine, Rock, and Dane Coun- 
ties. The latter were now becoming overcrowded 
and they furnished hundreds upon hundreds of re- 
cruits to the new settlements that were fast springing 
up. It is with the years 1848-49 that we associate this 
new trend in the movement, and which inaugurates 
this new period in the whole movement. Only its be- 
ginnings will here briefly be sketched as related to 
the counties of northeastern Iowa. Of the mass of 
material which has been placed at my disposal, I can 
only select what appears most essential to the pur- 
pose. 

The first county settled by Norwegians in 

407 And Texas, 



FIRST NORWEGIAN PIONEERS 363 

northeastern Iowa was Clayton. The first settlers 
were Ole H. Valle and wife and Ole T. Kittelsland 
who located in Read Township in the summer of 
1846. Both these men had, however, entered Iowa 
three years before. In 1843 they had come to the 
old Fort Atkinson in Winneshiek County, and had 
remained there for three years in the service of the 
government. '^^^ Valle and Kittelsland were both 
from Rollaug, Numedal; they had immigrated in 
1841 to Rock Prairie, and had from 1841-1843 worked 
in the Dodge\alle mines. In 1846 Soren 0. Sorum 
from Land Parish, Norway, came to Fort Atkinson 
and in 1847 Ingeborg Nilsen, a cousin of Ole Valle, 
came there. 

In the summer of 1846 then, Valle and Kittels- 
land located in Clayton County, '**'^ buying a farm 
together, about three miles southeast of the present 
village of St. Olaf. ■*'° Through letters from Valle 
the locality was soon brought to the attention of 
Norwegian settlers in Rock Prairie and Koshkonong. 
In the spring of 1849 Ole Herbrandson and family 
came out there from Koshkonong; he was an immi- 
grant from Morkvold, Rollaug, in 1842 and had, it 

408 Their duties being to show the Indians how to farm and in 
general to teach them the white man's ways. 

409 The first white child bom of Norwegian parents in the 
county was Jorund Valle (Mrs. Lars Thovson, St. Olaf), daughter 
of Ole Valle. 

410 See article by Rev. .Jacob Tanner, entitled: "En kort Beret- 
ning .50 Aars kirkelight Arbcide; Clayton County, Iowa," in Luther- 
aneren, 4.5 (1901). My facts here are gathered in large part from 
this article. 



364 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

seems, visited Valle in Clayton County in 1848 and 
found the locality to his liking. In June ^^^ Halvor 
Nilsen Espeseth, Knut Hustad, Ole Sonde, and Ing- 
bret Skarshaug, came from Rock Prairie ; '^^^ going to 
the western part of the county, Nilsen selected land 
in Grand Meadow Township, becoming the founder of 
the Clermont extension of the settlement, which, as 
Norwegians began to come in gradually, expanded 
north into Fayette and Winneshiek Counties. Other 
arrivals of the same summer were Abraham Rustad 
and family, Bredo A. Holt, Jens A. Holt, all from 
Hadeland, Bertie Osuldson, Tallak Gunderson and 
family from Arendal, and Ole Hanson and family. 
These located in the Clermont region; Jens Holt 
on section 17, Marion Township, and Hanson on sec- 
tion 6 in the same township. x\bout simultaneous 
with these, Fingar Johnson, Helge Ramstad and 
wife, Thorkel Eiteklep ^" Ole E. Sanden, with wife 
Guro and family, located in the eastern settlement.'*^'* 
The founders of these settlements nearly all 
came from Rock Prairie, where they had lived the 
first few years after immigrating. During the years 
1850-1851 a large number of immigrants joined the 
colony. The first of these were Lars Valle, Hellik 
Glaim, "^^^ and Ansten Blaekkestad, all from Numedal, 

411 The date was June 11th according to History of Clayton 
County, 1882, p. 831. 

412 The last three were from Hallingdal. 

413 According to others these two did not arrive till 1850. 

414 Tanner's article. Sanden and Fingar Johnson settled in 
Wagner Township. 

415 See above page 143. 



FIRST NORWEGIAN PIONEERS 365 

Ole Engbrigtsen and Peter Helgeson from Sig- 
dal in Numedal, and Ole Gunbjornson and Knut 
Jjpger from Halliugdal, while Hal stein Groth and 
family from Na^s in Hallingdal and Kittil Rue locat- 
ed in the western part of the settlement. The Groth 
family located in Marion Township, where also 
James and Jacob Panlson Broby, who came from 
Hadeland the next year, settled. Mrs. Ilolger Peter- 
son and son (Peter Holgerson) came in 1851 and set- 
tled in Wagner Township. Soren 0. Sorum and 
wife "^^ settled in Farmersburg Township in 1850, 
being the first Norwegians there. '*^'' 

But in the very beginning of this period the 
movement was directed to the counties to the North, 
Allamakee and Winneshiek. The immigration 
of Norwegians into Clayton County had practically 
ceased by 1855, the chief reason for this probably 
being that the Germans came in very large numbers, 
particularly to Clayton County, during the early fif- 
ties and soon occupied all the best land. "^^^ North- 
eastern Iowa was but little settled, and the develop- 
ment of the wilderness had only begun. Clayton 
County had in 1850 a population of three thousand 
eight hundred and seventy-three, while Fayette had 

416 See note, on p. 213. 

417 In 1867 he moved to Wagner Township. 

418 Rev. Tanner writes: "When we look at this Norwegian 
settlement as it was then and is to-day largely, it immediately 
strikes us that it was wood and water the colonists looked for, and 
therefore they let the prairie lie and chose the hills along the 
Turkey River. Not until later did they learn to understand the 
value of the prairie, but then the Germans had taken most of it." 



366 NORWEGIAN IINIMIGRATION 

only eight hundred and twenty-five, and Allamakee 
seven hundred and seventy-seven. The population 
of Winneshiek County had reached four thousand 
nine hundred and fifty- seven. 

Allamakee was the next county in order of set- 
tlement. '^^^ This county was opened to settlement 
in 1848, but land was not put upon the market before 
1850. '♦^o In 1849 Ole L. Rothnem, Ole 0. Storlag, 
Olo K. Grimsgaard and Erik K. Barsgrind came 
from Rock County to Allamakee County and select- 
ed land. In 1850 they moved out with their families 
and in company with them came : Ole K. Stake, Arne 
K. Stake, Syver Wold and Thomas A. Gronna. 
Others who came about the same time were : Thomas 
Anderson '^-^ and wife Emilie, Sven E. Hesla, ^"'^ 
Bjorn Hermundson, Nils T. Rue, Osten Peterson, 
Lars Jeglum, Halvor E. Turkop, Ole S. Lekvold, all 
from Hallingdal, and Nils N. Arnesgaard, who was 
from Numedal. Among others who followed the 
next year I shall mention : Knut Knutson, "^^^ G. H. 
Fagre and wife Katherine, and Ole Smeby (b. 1804), 
wife and sons Hans, Ole, and John. They settled on 

419 The Fayette County settlement about Clermont is a western 
extension of the second settlement in Clayton County; its begin- 
nings have been referred to above. 

420 The first entry of purchase appears under the date of Octo- 
ber 7, 1850. The earliest settler in the county was Henry Johnson, 
after whom Johnsonsport was named, but I do not know of what 
nationality he was. 

421 Hesla had came to America in 1845, Anderson in 1846. 

422 Settled in Makee Township; he had came from Norway in 
1849. 



FIRST NORWEGIAN PIONEERS 367 

the prairie north of Paint Creek, living in their can- 
va-s-covered wagons until houses were built. Those 
here named foiTQed the nucleus of the Paint Creek 
Settlement, which already the next year received 
large accessions. 

The early settlers of Allamakee and neighbor- 
ing counties experienced all the trials and hardships 
of pioneer life in an unsettled country. There was 
no railroad nearer than Milwaukee. At McGregor 
there were a few stores where the necessaries of life 
could be had. '^^^ The process of home building and 
the clearing of the forests was slow and often attend- 
ed with many difficulties. The pioneers generally 
brought with them no other wealth than stout hearts 
and strong hands, and it was only by industry and 
severe economy that they were able to make a living 
for themselves and their families. Those who hired 
out to others received very small wages, and as there 
was little money among the pioneer farmers this was 
paid in large part in food or other articles. It may 
serv^e as an illustration that in the winter of 1850-51 
a pioneer in Clayton County '^^'^ split seven thousand 
rails of wood for fifty cents a hundred; for this he 
was paid $3.50 in cash and the remainder in food. "^^ 

Most of the Norwegians who first settled in Al- 



423 In the Clermont Settlement there was a log-cabin store at 
the village of Clermont. 

424 This pioneer is still living. — See Tanner 's article. 

425 A barrel of flour at that time cost twelve dollars in Iowa, and 
a bushel of corn seventy five cents. The usual wages was 25c a day, 
sometimes a little more. 



368 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

lamakee County came from Rock County, Wisconsin ; 
later, some came from Dane County, Wisconsin, and 
also from Winneshiek County, where a settlement 
was formed in June, 1850. Several, however, came 
from Norway by way of New Orleans and the Mis- 
sissippi, as did Gilbert C. Lyse in 1851. 

In 1856 there were in the whole county five hun- 
dred and five Norwegians; one hundred and eighty- 
one of these had settled in Paint Creek (then Water- 
ville) Township, the rest being located mostly in 
the neighboring towns of Center, La Fayette, Taylor, 
Jefferson and Makee. In the meantime a new settle- 
ment had been established in the northwestern part 
of the county, in Hanover and Waterloo, which soon 
extended into Winneshiek County. But the earliest 
Norwegian settlement in Winneshiek was formed on 
Washington Prairie in June, 1850, ^~^ when a number 
of families moved in from Racine and Dane Coun- 
ties, Wisconsin. Eastern Winneshiek County re- 
ceived in the following year a large Norwegian pop- 
ulation. 

Those who came in the latter part of June, 1850, 
and settled on Washington Prairie were: Eric An- 
derson (Rudi),'*27 the brothers Ole and Staale T. 
Haugen from Flekkefjord, Ole G. Jevne, Ole and 
Andrew A. Lomen, Knut A. Bakken, Anders Hauge, 
John J. Quale, and Halvor H. Groven, all from 
Valders, and Mikkel Omli from Telemarken. On 

426 The county was organized in 1850, and the first term of court 
convened on October 5th, 1851. 

427 See above page 232. 



FIRST NORWEGIAN PIONEERS 369 

July third another i)arty headed by Nels Johnson ''"^ 
arrived, including Tollef Simonson Aae, Knud Op- 
dahl, Jacob Abrahamson, ^^^ Iver P. Quale, Gjer- 
mund Johnson (Kaasa),'*^° and Jolin Thun. 

Of the coming of this party Reverend Jacobson 
has given the following account: In the spring of 
1850 his parents and a number of other families left 
Muskego to move out west. The leader of the party 
was Nels Johnson; he had a large military wagon 
drawn by six oxen. ' * This had a big box on, filled with 
household goods and covered with white canvas. 
On the outside was placed, lengthwise, the wagon box, 
several joints of stove pipe, so the outfit, with a little 
stretch of imagination, ' ' says Rev. Jacobson, ' ' looked 
like a man-of-war; this was the so-called 'prairie- 
schooner.' Then there were other vehicles of all 
sizes and shapes, from truck wagons, the wheels of 
which were made of solid sections of oak logs, down 
to the two-wheel carts." At Koslikonong, Dane Coun- 

428 The father of Martin N. Johnson, member of Congress from 
North Dakota. Nelson Johnson was one of the founders of the 
Muskego Settlement in Wisconsin in 1839. He later entered the 
Methodist ministry and was for two years, 1855-1857, pastor of the 
Norwegian M. E. Church in Cambridge, Wisconsin. With the ex- 
ception of these two years he lived in Winneshiek County until his 
death in 1882. 

429 Father of Eev. Abraham Jacobson, to whom I am in part 
indebted for facte on the early settlement of Washington Prairie. 
Rev. Jacobson has also printed a pamphlet: The Pioneer Norwegians, 
Deeorah, 1905, 16 pages, which is a most valuable contribution to the 
])ioneer history of Winneshiek County. A very brief chapter on the 
"Pioneer Norwegians" may also bo found in Alexander's History of 
Winneshiek County, 1882, pages 185-186. 

430 A brother of Nels Johnson. Thun was from Valders. 



370 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ty, so many more joined them that they were in all 
over one hundred individuals ; the caravan included 
furthermore now two hundred head of cattle, a few 
hogs and sheep, a mare and a colt. They drove on 
via Madison, then a little village, to Prairie du Chien, 
where the party divided one-half going to Vernon 
County, "^^^ Wisconsin, the other half to Iowa. Rev, 
erend Jacobson says of the journey at this point: 

The Wisconsin river had to be crossed on a small ferry 
boat, the propelling power was furnished by a horse placed 
on a tread-power which worked the paddle-wheels. Only 
one wagon and a team at a time could be taken aboard. 
The herd of loose cattle had to swim over the river, all of 
which was accomplished without any accident worthy of 
note. The ferry boat at Prairie du Chien was larger and 
propelled by four mule power, but the water being high, 
the Mississippi River was nearly two miles wide, and much 
time was taken to get all to the western bank. Thirteen 
miles northwest from McGregor at Poverty Point, since 
called Monona, another halt of a creek was made. The 
scouting party before alluded to had visited several local- 
ities, and opinions were divided as to which was the best 
point to settle down. The company was now divided into 
three divisions, we going with the original leader to the 
vicinity of Decorah, landing on our claims on the third of 
July. The journey had taken five weeks, counting from 
the time of starting. Those who had room enough slept 
under the wagon covers, the others slept on the bare groimd 
under the wagons. ('^^^^ 



431 The Norwegian settlement at and about Westby, Vernon Ck)., 
dates from this time, 1850. 

432 Speaking of the Indians Rev. Jacobson says, ' ' They had their 



FIRST NORWEGIAN PIONEERS 371 

Of this party Simonson, Opdahl, Abrahamson, 
and Quale settled in Springfield, the rest in Decorah 
and Glenwood Townships. "*" Most of the members 
of these parties had come to America several years 
before, as Opdahl in 1848 and Tostenson in 1847; 
three of them, as we know, Eudi and the two John- 
sons, had immigrated in 1839. 

A small party from Jefferson Prairie, Wiscon- 
sin, including Tore P. Skotland and his brother 
Endre P. Sandanger, Ellef and Lars Land, natives 
of Ringerike, also came the same summer; these se- 
cured claims around Calmar. The first list of landed 
assessments in Winneshiek County ^^'^ records the 
names of Jacob Abrahamson, Knud Guldbrandson 
(Opdahl), Ole Gullikson (Jevne), Egbert Guldbrand- 
son (Saland), Erik Clement (Skaali), Halvor Hal- 
vorson (Groven), 0. A. Lomen, Ole Larsen Bergan, 
Mikkel Omli, Tollef Simonson (Aae), T. Hulverson, 
and Ole Tostenson. 

Among other settlers of 1850, not named above, 
I may name: Nils Thronson, who had come from 

homes in the Territory of Minnesota, and did not molest the settlers 
in the least. ' ' On the banks of the Upper Iowa river many Indian 
graves were found. The bodies were buried in a sitting position, 
with the head sometimes above the ground. A forked stick put up 
like a post at each end of the grave held a ridge pole on which 
leaned thin boards, placed slanting to each side of the grave. Thus 
each grave presented the appearance of the gable of a small house. 

433 The eastern two-thirds of Winneshiek County clear to the 
Minnesota line in a few years became extensively settled by Nor- 
wegians. 

434 According to Eeverend Jacobson, The Pioneer Norwegian p. 
5; the list is for 1852. 



372 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Valders in 1848, settling in Dane County, Wiscon- 
sin; he located in Glenwood Township in the sum- 
mer of 1850 ; Christopher A. Estrem from Vang Par- 
ish, who had immigrated to Chicago in 1848; he 
came to Winneshiek County and located in Frank- 
ville Township as one of the very first Norwegians 
there; Engebret Haugen, who had immigrated in 
1842, locating near Beloit, Wisconsin; the family 
settled near Decorah in 1850, purchasing the old In- 
dian Trading Post then owned by J. G. Eice. 

In the fall of 1850 Johannes Evenson, Ole L. 
Bergan, Knud L. Bergan, and Jorgen Lommen came. 
Of these Evenson located west of Decorah, in Mad- 
ison Township, becoming the first Norwegian to set- 
tle there. '*^^ As near as I can tell, Lars Iverson 
Medaas and family were the first Norwegians to set- 
tle in Canoe Township. Iverson who was born at 
Tillung, Voss (in 1802), but had married Sigrid Vik- 
ingsdatter in Graven, Hardanger (1835) and settled 
on the farm Medaas, emigrated to America in 1850. 
They spent the first winter on Liberty Prairie, Dane 
County, Wisconsin, and moved to Winneshiek Coun- 
ty early in the spring of 1851, locating in Canoe 
Township, on section two, where they lived till their 
death. ^^^ 



435 Helge N. Myrand and his widowed mother, who had immi- 
grated in 1841 and settled in Muskego County, came west and located 
in Madison in 1851. 

436 Iverson died in 1887, his wife in 1890. Iver Larson, well 
known merchant and for many years treasurer of the United Nor- 
wegian Lutheran Church, who died in 1907, was a son of Iverson. 



FIRST NORWEGIAN PIONEERS 373 

The first Norwegians to enter Hesper Township 
were a party of immigrants who came by the ship 
Valhalla from Tonsberg in the summer of 1852. 
They were from Tolgen, in northern Osterdalen, and 
from Roraas and Guldalen, '^^^ hence from a much 
more northerly region than their countrjnnen in 
southern Winneshiek County. The party consisted 
of the following: Trond Laugen, John Losen, Sr., 
Bendt Pederson, Ingbrigt Bergh, Mons Monsen, all 
of whom were married, and John Void and Jocum 
Nelson. These were followed in the next year by 
John S. Losen, Jr., and Ole B. Anderson Borren. 
Among the earliest settlers from other regions were 
Paul Thorsen, Salve Olson and Torjus Gunderson 
from Sa?tersdalen, Knut Herbrandson and Christian 
Lien from Hallingdal, Aadne Glaamene and family 
from Voss, Lars Bakka and Bendik Larson from 
Sogn, and Peder Wennes from Vardalen. "^^^ 

From the towns of Springfield, Decorah, and 
Glenwood, the settlement thus soon spread into the 
neighboring townships — north into Canoe, Hesper, 
and Highland, where it united with the settlement in 
northwestern Allamakee County, and south through 
the towns of Calmar and Military, uniting with the 
settlement in north central Fayette County in Door 
Township. This last settlement extends through 
Pleasant Valley southward into Clayton County. 

437 They were the first emigrants to America from this district. 

438 For the facts on Hesper Township I am indebted to Mr. 
J. A. Nelson of Prosper, Minnesota, a student in the State Univer- 
sity of Iowa. 



374 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

Together these settlements form the eastern part of 
Clayton County, west through Fayette, and north 
through Winneshiek to northern Allamakee. In Al- 
lamakee it extends as far as Harper's Ferry and 
Lansing. The bulk of the population, however, 
is found in Winneshiek County. The principal Nor- 
wegian townships are: Glenwood, Decorah, Spring- 
field, Madison, and Highland. About half of the 
population of the county is of Norwegian birth, or 
of that descent. 



CHAPTER XLII 

Survey of Immigration from Norway to America. 
Conclusion. 

We are then at the end of our task. We dis- 
cussed at first early individual immigration from 
Norway down to the year 1825. Then tracing brief- 
ly the fortunes of the party of immigrants who came 
from Norway that year we followed the subsequent 
immigration, year by year, down to 1848, and the 
founding of settlements in this country from Orleans 
County, New York, in 1825, to Winneshiek County, 
Iowa, in 1850. The growth of the emigration move- 
ment in Norway and the course of settlements here 
have been indicated. The names of the promoters of 
emigration in each district and province and of the 
founders of settlements have in all cases been given. 
In most cases we have succeeded in giving a fairly 
complete list of names of the settlers in any com- 
munity during the first four to eight years of its 
history, that is its period of growth, the years dur- 
ing which it assumed the character of a Norwegian 
settlement. The varied causes of emigration were 
also discussed at some length as also other ques- 
tions as the cost of passage and duration and course 
of the journey ; and in the discussion of the individual 
settlements we have now and then given a glimpse 
of the general conditions of life in early pioneer 



376 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

days. I desire now by way of conclusion to summar- 
ize briefly the course of emigration in Norway and 
the distribution of the representatives of eacli dis- 
trict in this country. 

Tlie first emigrants from Norway were from 
Stavanger, Haugesund and Ryfylke. Before 1836 
the movement did not reach out beyond these dis- 
tricts although a few individuals had come from 
Sondhordland and Hardanger. The emigration 
from Hardanger begins properly in 1836 ; that year 
also records the first arrivals from Voss. ^^^ How- 
ever most of the immigrants of that year, as the fol- 
lowing two years, were from the districts that had 
furnished the emigrants of the decade 1825-1835. 
The year 1837 is especially noteworthy for the sail- 
ing of the first emigrant ship from Bergen and that 
the immediate vicinity of Bergen for the first time 
furnished its quota of the emigration. It is further 
significant in that Voss now enters definitely into 
the movement, and that Upper Telemarken and the 
neighboring region of West Numedal contributed the 
first recruits to the American settlements. The emi- 
grants of 1839 came in considerable part from Upper 
Telemarken, from Numedal, from Voss and Hardan- 
ger, but not a few also from the older districts. 
This continued in 1840 and 1841, except that there 
were no emigrants from Hardanger during these 
two years and very few for the next four years also. 
In 1842 the first party left Sogn and in 1844 and 



439 At least eighteen persons from Hardanger and two from Voss. 



SURVEY OF IMMIGRATION 377 

1845 considerable numbers came to America from 
this district. The year 1843 is especially noteworthy 
for the very large emigration of that year from Up- 
per Telemarken and the growth of the movement 
in new parishes in Numedal. In this year also the 
America-fever enters Lower Telemarken, a number 
of families going to America from Holden Parish 
and Kragero, which in 1844-1845 expands to include 
Sande and Bo and the region of Skien. During 1843 
the first emigrants also leave Saetersdalen, and from 
now on it is to be observed that there is a steady 
out-going of emigrants from Ryfylke and Sondhord- 
land for the period of nearly a decade. The move- 
ment is also beginning to expand in two other direc- 
tions : north from Numedal into Hallingdal and soon 
after northeast from the region of the Sognefjord 
up to northern and the extreme Inner Sogn. The 
influx of immigrants from Telemarken and Numedal 
continues, and in increased numbers from Voss 
and the movement begins anew in Hardanger in 1846. 
Hallingdal sent forth a large number of families and 
single persons in 1846-47, most of whom as we know 
settled in Rock and La Fayette Counties, "Wisconsin, 
many later moving into Iowa. In 1847-48 these two 
movements meet in Valders, the one from Hallingdal 
entering first in South and North Aurdal, the other 
from Laerdal and Aardal in Sogn, entering about 
1850 into Vang, Hurum and West Slidre in Valders. 
In the meantime the movement has traveled also 
from Lower Telemarken, Drammen and Eastern 



378 SURVEY OF IMMIGRATION 

Numedal (Sigdal) up through Ringerike, Hadeland 
and Land. Especially large was the emigration from 
North and South Land clear to Torpen in 1847-1850. 
The region east of Land, i. e., Toten, Hedemarken 
and Solor furnish occasional immigrants from now 
on but not in considerable numbers until many years 
later. From Land and from Valders the movement 
grows northward into Gudbrandsdalen and north- 
westward into Osterdalen and Trondhjem, from 
which provinces, however, relatively very few emi- 
grated to America until after 1850, and the emigra- 
tion was not heavy from this region or from the 
northern coast districts, — Sondf jord, Nordf jord, 
Sondmore, Nordmore — until after the Civil War. ""'^ 
As to the number of immigrants that each of 
the districts had contributed to the American pop- 
ulation before 1850, or have down to the present time, 
it would be diflScult to say. The emigration from 
such vast districts as Telemarken and Sogn, as later 
from Gudbrandsdalen, Hedemarken and Osterdalen, 
has been heaviest, while from Ryfylke and Voss the 
incoming settlers have been very numerous, as also 
from the small but very populous Sondhordland, 
Hadeland and Land. Valdris and Hallingdal ^^^ 
each about half as large as Sogn have contributed 

440 And from Nordland not until after 1875. It is to be ob- 
Berved also that the emigration from the older inland districts was 
very heavy clear down to 1890. 

441 In 1891 Hallingdal had a population of 12,900, Valdris 17,- 
000, Sogn 37,050, Sondhordland 34,750, Hardanger 25,900, Ryfylke 
46,000, Telemarken 44,000, Ssetersdalen 8,380. The population of 
each is much larger now. 



SURVEY OF IMMIGRATION 379 

perhaps each about one-third as many immigrants 
as Sogn, each contributing about equally to the 
American emigration. Relatively small has been the 
immigration from Hardanger, Saetersdalen and the 
\acinity of Stavanger. The extensive districts of 
Telemarken and Sogn entered early into the move- 
ment and have continued down to the present time to 
furnish large numbers of recruits to the Norwegian 
immigrant population. Representatives of these 
two regions, the immigrated and their descendants, 
are, I believe, most numerous among the various 
groups of Norwegian settlers in America. 

In this country the relative position of the rep- 
resentatives of each is about that which they occu- 
pied in the old; this finds its reason chiefly in the 
time at which the different states were opened up to 
settlers. Natives from Stavanger, Ryfylke and 
Sondhordland are found chiefly in Illinois and in the 
settlements of Central Iowa (Benton and Story 
Counties). In Illinois are located also in large num- 
bers natives of Hardanger (Lee County), and Voss 
(Chicago), but only to a very limited extent those 
of other districts. In Southern Wisconsin and to 
a slight extent in the adjacent parts of Illinois have 
located especially the natives of Numedal, and to 
some extent those of Land and Sogn. Natives of 
Sogn have, however, found homes most extensively 
in the various settlements of Wisconsin and Min- 
nesota and Northern Iowa. '*'*^ Here they are pres- 

442 In Winneshiek and Worth Counties, where also natives of 
Hallingdal have settled in large numbers. 



380 NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 

ent in all parts of the states but in largest numbers 
in the oldest settlements in Southern and Western 
Wisconsin and in Southeastern Minnesota. Natives 
of Telemarken are found well scattered, from their 
original center in Eacine County, through Walworth 
and Dane Counties, thence to Central Wisconsin and 
Minnesota. The representatives of Valders are 
found in largest numbers in Western Dane County, 
in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, and in Goodhue 
County, Minnesota. 

It will not be possible to discuss here the later 
development of the various settlements that have 
been treated above or the increase of the Norwegian 
factor in the counties where these settlements were 
formed. Space forbids this, and these facts have, 
furthermore, been briefly indicated elsewhere in this 
volume. Thus in Chapter II we have outlined the 
extent of immigration from Norway and the geo- 
graphical distribution of settlements, while the subse- 
quent history of the special settlements has often 
been briefly indicated. It may here be added that the 
counties in Southern Wisconsin as a whole enjoyed a 
much more rapid development during the years 1840- 
1850 than those of Northern Illinois, and that this 
was due in a very large measure to the incoming of 
such a large number of settlers from Norway '*'*^ in 
the best years of their life. 

It has elsewhere in this volume been shown that 
Wisconsin early became the objective point of im- 



443 Similarly the ' ' Norwegian ' ' county of La Salle in Illinois 



SURVEY OF IMMIGRATION 381 

migrants from Norway. This significant position 
in Norwegian- American history Wisconsin continued 
to hold throughout the whole period we have dis- 
cussed and for a long time afterwards. In 1850, fifty 
per cent of all Norwegians in the United States 
were domiciled within the borders of the State of 
Wisconsin. It was with Wisconsin that the chief 
events in early Norwegian- American history are as- 
sociated. The principal scenes in the great pioneer 
drama were enacted here. As all the paths of the 
Norwegian immigrant in that early day led to Wis- 
consin so the threads of all subsequent Norwegian 
history in America lead back to Wisconsin. '•'*'* 
Wliether in material welfare, in church, in politics 
or in education it was in Wisconsin that the Norwe- 
gian first made a place for himself in America and 
laid the foundation for all his later progress. '^'^^ 

was the leading county in that part of Illinois in the same period, 
its population in 1850 being 17,815, that of Grundy 3,023, and De 
Kalb, 7,540. 

In the year 1900 the principal Norwegian counties among 
those that fall within the scope of the discussion in this volume were 
in order: Cook County, Illinois; Dane County, Wisconsin; Winne- 
shiek County, Iowa; Milwaukee County, Wisconsin; Rock County, 
Wisconsin ; and La Salle County, Illinois. 

444 Barring the relatively very small Norwegian factor in the 
cities of the East, which stands practically isolated from Norwegian 
American life. 

445 At the same time we must not forget that the era of settle- 
ment began in Illinois, and Illinois has always continued to hold a 
prominent place in Norwegian-American history. 



Appendices 



APPENDIX I 



TABLE I 



Showing the growth and distribution of the foreign Scandinavian factor by 

decades in the Northwestern states and in sections elsewhere 

1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 

Michigan 139 898 5,276 16,445 41,496 40,928 

Wisconsin 8,885 23,265 48,057 66,284 99,738 103,942 

Illinois 3,631 12,073 44,570 65,414 128,897 144,812 

Iowa 611 7,814 31,177 46,046 72,873 72,611 

Minnesota 12 11,773 58,837 107,768 215,215 236,670 

Nebraska 323 3,987 16,685 46,341 40,107 

North Dakota ) -,„q , „„^ ,_gP3^ 34,216 42,578 

South Dakota ^ ^^^ ^'^'^ ^' '^^'^ } 51,372 33,473 

Total in Northwest 13,278 56,275 193,578 336,511 670,148 715,121 

New England 749 1,507 3,113 11,243 43,606 70,632 

New York ) 

New Jersey [ 1,897 4,506. 12,291 28,492 75,331 105,641 

Pennsylvania i 

The South l 1,084 1,531 3,189 4,081 5,936 7,646 

All other states 1,067 8,763 29,497 59,935 138,328 166,525 

Total outside Northwest.. 4,797 16,307 48,090 103,741 263,201 350,444 

Total 18,075 72,582 241,668 440,252 933,349 1,065,565 



TABLE II 



Showing the growth of the Norwegian foreign-born 
by decades since 1850 

1850 1860 1870 

Maine 12 27 58 

New Hampshire 2 5 55 

Vermont 8 34 

Massachusetts 69 171 302 

Ehode Island 25 38 22 

Connecticut 1 22 72 

New York 392 539 975 

New Jersey 4 65 90 

Maryland 10 7 17 

Delaware 

District of Columbia 1 5 

Pennsylvania 27 83 115 

Virginia 5 8 17 

West Virginia 1 

1 Not including Missouri. 



population in each state 



1880 


1890 


1900 


99 


311 


509 


79 


251 


295 


10 


38 


54 


639 


2,519 


3,335 


56 


285 


342 


168 


529 


709 


2,185 


8,602 


12,601 


229 


1,317 


2,296 


108 


164 


246 


6 


14 


49 


19 


70 


101 


381 


2,238 


1,393 


29 


102 


123 


3 


7 


19 



I 



386 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



North Carolina 

South Carolina 

Florida 17 

Georgia 6 

Alabama 3 

Tennessee 

Kentucky 18 

Mississippi 8 

Louisiana 64 

Arkansas 1 

Missouri 155 

Ohio 18 

Indiana 18 

Illinois 2,415 

Michigan 110 

Wisconsin 8,651 

Iowa 361 

Minnesota 7 

Kansas 

Nebraska 

South Dakota 

North Dakota 

Wyoming 

Colorado 

Oklahoma 

Texas 

Arizona 

Utah 

Nevada 

Idaho 

New Mexico 

California 

Oregon 

Washington 

Montana 

Total 12,407 



4 


5 


10 


13 


2 


4 




5 


23 


4< 


11 


16 


79 


179 


23. 


13 


14 


23 


88 


15, 


51 


21 


24 


47 


15S 


14 


37 


25 


41 


14 


10 


16 


21 


120 


3' 


15 


78 


56 


54 


7' 


63 


76 


78 


136 


18 


5 


19 


33 


60 


12 


146 


297 


373 


526 


53 


19 


64 


178 


511 


63 


38 


123 


182 


285 


38 


4,891 


11,880 


16,970 


30,339 


29,97 


440 


1,516 


3,520 


7,795 


7,58 


21,442 


40,046 


49,349 


65,696 


61,57 


5,688 


17,554 


21,583 


27,078 


25,63 


8,425 


35,940 


62,521 


101,169 


104,89 


223 


588 


1,358 


1,786 


1,47 




506 


2,010 


3,632 


2,88 


I 129 


1,179 


13,245 j 


19,257 
25,773 


19,7- 
30,2' 




28 


74 


345 


3' 


12 


40 


354 


893 
36 


1,1' 

i; 


326 


403 


880 


1,313 


i,3r 




7 


45 


59 


11 




613 


1,214 


1,854 


2,U 




80 


119 


69 


c 




61 


276 


741 


1,17 


2 


5 


17 


42 


3 


715 


1,000 


1,765 


3,702 


5,06 


43 


76 


574 


2.271 


2.78 




104 


580 


8.324 


9,89 




88 


174 


1,957 


3,35 


43,695 


114,246 


181,696 


302,721 


335,72 


TABLE 


III 









Showing the Norwegian foreign parentage population 

according to the U. S. Census for 1900 

1. Minnesota 257,959 8. 

2. Wisconsin 155,125 9. 

3. North Dakota 72,012 10. 

4. Iowa 71,170 11. 

5. Illinois 59,9.54 12. 

6. South Dakota 51.199 13. 

7. New York 18,928 14. 



in the United Ste 



Washington 18 

Michigan 14 

California 8 

Nebraska 7, 

Montana 5,- 

Oregon 5.5 

Massachusetts 5,0C 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



387 



15. Utah 4,557 34. 

16. Kansas 3,731 35. 

17. New Jersey 3,518 36. 

18. Texas 3,406 37. 

19. Idaho 2,767 38. 

20. Pennsylvania 2,254 39. 

21. Colorado 2,096 40. 

22. Alaska 1,454 41. 

23. Missouri 1,301 42. 

24. Ohio 1,174 43. 

25. Connecticut 1,083 44. 

26. Indiana 852 45. 

27. Maine 833 46. 

28. Wyoming 727 47. 

29. Florida 558 48. 

30. New Hampshire 504 49. 

31. Ehode Island 502 50. 

32. Maryland 442 51. 

33. Louisiana 441 



Tennessee 383 

Alabama 375 

Hawaii 370 

Oklahoma 350 

Virginia 282 

Georgia 277 

Arizona 228 

Mississippi 211 

District of Columbia . . 195 

Arkansas 133 

Indian Territory .... 115 

Nevada 95 

Vermont 93 

Kentucky 88 

South Carolina 86 

Delaware 59 

West Virginia 46 

North CaroUna 44 



APPENDIX II 



Names of Parishes and Settlements in Norway (see page 131). 



1. Skjold. 

2. Kopervik. 

3. Tananger. 

4. Aardal. 

5. Vikedal. 

6. Hjelmeland. 

7. Skaanevik. 

8. Vinje. 

9. Mo. 

10. Flatdal. 

11. Siljord. 

12. Hviteseid. 

13. Laurdal. 

14. Nissedal. 

15. Moland. 

16. Drangedal. 

17. Sandokedal. 

18. Bamle. 

19. Gjerpen. 

20. Porsgrund. 

21. Hiterdal. 

22. Eollaug. 

23. Nore. 

24. Sigdal. 

25. Flesberg. 

26. Lyngdal. 

27. Eggedal. 

28. Hovin. 

29. Tin. 

30. Bo. 

31. Holden. 

32. Slemdal. 

33. SandsvEerd. 

34. Eker. 

35. Modum. 

36. Lier. 

37. Skauger. 

38. Sande. 

39. Kvindherred. 

40. Odde. 

41. Jondal. 

42. Vikor. 

43. Ullensvang. 



44. Ulvik. 

45. Vossevangen. 

46. Vossestranden. 

47. Evanger. 

48. Graven. 

49. Samnanger. 

50. Vik. 

51. Aurland. 

52. Laurdal. 

53. Lekanger. 

54. Sogndal. 

55. Aardal. 

56. Lyster. 

57. Jostedal. 

58. Fjerland. 

59. Balestrand. 

60. Borgiind. 

61. Hemsedal. 

62. Gol. 

63. Na?s. 

64. Flaa. 

65. Sondre Aurdal. 

66. Nordre Aurdal. 

67. Vestre Slidre. 

68. ostre Slidre. 

69. Hurum. 

70. Vang. 

71. Nordre Land. 

72. Sondre Land. 

73. Vardal. 

74. Bin. 

75. Eingsaker. 

76. Ullensaker. 

77. Faaberg. 

78. Rendalen. 

79. Vaage. 

80. Froen. 

81. Lesje. 

82. Eid. 

83. Selbu. 

84. Soknedalen. 

85. Eindalen. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



The brief bibliography here given is not intended to be com- 
plete. The books and articdes spoken of in the "Foreword" of this 
volume, pages 7-9, are not re-listed here. 

Anderson, Rasmus B. Biigdejaevning. Madison, Wis., 1903. Pp. 
VI + 215. Has very little historical value; a series of uncritical 
contributions. 

Flom, George T. Chapters on Scandinavian Immigration to Iowa. 
Iowa City, 1905. Pp. IV -f 150. A brief survey. 

Hatlestad, O. J. Historislce Meddelelser om den norslce Augustana 
Synode. Decorah, Iowa, 1887. Pp. 254. 

Holand, Hjalmar E. De norsJce Settlementers Historic. Ephraim, 
Wis., 1908. Pp. 603. A series of brief surveys (on pages 100- 
565) of most of the settlements down to 1865, unfortunately in 
part uncritical. 

Keyes, Judge E. W. History of Bane County. Madison, Wisconsin, 
1906. A^'olumes I-III. Scandinavian matter very incomplete 
and often erroneous. Names frequently misspelled. 

Evartalskrift. Udgivet of Det norske Selskab i Amerika. Wal- 
demar Ager, Eedaktor I-V, 1905-1909. Various articles, usually 
very good. 

Langeland, Knud. Nordmaendene i AmeriJca. Chicago, 1889. Pp. 
224. Fragmentary. 

Nelson, O. N. History of the Scandinavians and Successful Scan- 
dinavians in the United States. Minneapolis, Minn., 1901. Vol- 
umes I-II. A series of articles by various contributors and a 
large number of biographies. In general very reliable. 

Normandsforbundet, I-II, 1907-1909. A number of excellent articles 
of real permanent value. 

Peck, Geo. W., ed. Cyclopedia of Wisconsin. Madison, Wisconsin, 
1906. Volumes I-II. Scandinavian biographies, etc., often full 
of errors. 

Ulvestad, Martin. Normaendene i Amerika, deres Historic og 
Becord. Minneapolis, 1907. Pp. 871. 



INDEX 



[The Church Register and the footnotes are not indexed. 1 



Aaberge, Peder S., 312 

Aadland, Knud, 162 

Aadland, Mens, 100, 103, 112, 158, 

161, 162, 222, 283 
Aadland, Thomas, 162, 280 
Aacn, Halvor N., 211 
Aamodt, Anders, 220 
Aamodt, Christopher, 298 
Aaretuen, Anna, 287 
Aaretuen, Knut, 266, 269, 270 
Aaretuen, Knut K., 285, 287 
Aarhus, Rasmus J., Zl 
Aarhus, Reiar, 342 
Aarness, Angon, 338 
Aas, Aslak, 286 
Aas, Halvor N., 143, 144 
Aas, Lars, see Skavlem, Lars 
Aase, Anders K., 276 
Aase, Hans H., 338 
Aase, Lasse E., 276, 310 
Aase, Thor, 340 
Aasen, Halvor, 148 
Aasen, Halvor, 261 
Aasen, Nils, 302 
Aasland, Ole, 118, 119, 222 
Aasnes, Ole T., 188 
Aavri, Anders O., 273 
Aavri, Johans O., 273 
Aavri, Ole J., 273 
Abrahamson, Jacob, 369, 371 
Aga, Jon J., 95 
Allen, Mrs. Margaret, 45, 60 
Allen, William, 49, 76 
Anderson, Arnold A., 178 
Anderson (Aasen), Andrew, 93, 355 
Anderson, Andrew, 238 
Anderson, A. S., 59 
Anderson, Anderson G., 58 
Anderson, Arle, 232 
Anderson (Kvelve), Bjorn, 93, 110, 

175, 176, 178, 179, 180, 256 
Anderson, Dan K., 8, 304 
Anderson, Eric, 232, 348 



Anderson, Erik A. 
Anderson, Halvor, 291 
Anderson, John, 337, 338 
Anderson, J. C, 235 
Anderson, John A., 238, 284 
Anderson, Kjel, 337, 338 
Anderson, Lars O., 149 
Anderson, Martha, 235 
Anderson, Ole, 13 
Anderson, Ole, 147, 159, 202 
Anderson, Ole, 344 
Anderson, Ole O., 312 
Anderson, Peter S., 304 
Anderson, R. B., 9, 37, 47, 56, 66, 

103, 173, 191 
Anderson, Susanna, 93 
Anderson, William, 348 
Andrewson, Rev. O., 209 
Andsion, Peter M., 286 
Anmarksrud, Tollef S., 343 
Arnesgaard, Nils, 366 
Arveson, Hans, 290, 293 
Arveson, Harvey, 8, 290, 293, 294 
Arveson, Isak, 290 
Arveson, John, 292 
Arveson, Ole, 290 
Asdohklalen, Knut, 260 
Askeland, Andrew, 125 
Atwater, John, 60 

Baarson (Bowerson), Knut, 345 

Baarson, Lars, 208 

Backe, Soren, 156, 158, 159, 160 

Backe, Tollef O., 156 

Baker (Bager), John, 251 

Baker, Mrs. Ole, 345 

Baker, P. O., 345 

Bakka, Lars, 373 

Bakke, Hans H., 285 

Bakke, Ole J., 218 

Bakken, Ole O., 342 

Bakkcn, Tideman, 342 

Bakketun, Anna, 150, 233 



392 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Bakketun, Nils, 235 

Bakketun, Ole, 236 

Bakli, Kittil, 261 

Bakli, Knut K., 261 

Bakli, Mrs. Ole, 186 

Barlien, Hans, 108, 110, 123. 192, 

193, 197 
Barstad, Ole G., 188 
Barton, Ole, 342 
Bauge, Thomas, 100 
Baura, Mathias, 295 
Behrens, Captain, 78, 100 
Beige, A. T., 217 
Bekkjorden, Synnove K., 261 
Belgum, Nils O., 343 
Bendixen, Capt., 267 
Benson, John, 276 
Benson, Ole, 277 
Berdahl, Eli I., 311 
Berdahl, Ole, 273 
Bere, Peder, 208 
Berg, Ellef A., 260 
Berg, Erik K., 218 
Berg, Ingebrigt 
Berg, Truls, 218 
Bergan, Ole L., 371 
Berge, Herbrand H., 212 
Berge, John I., 285, 340, 341 
Berge, Kari, 283 
Bergen, Augun, 281 
Bergen, Hans, 36 
Bergkvam, Jens B., 307 
Bergland, Gunhild, 254 
Bergrud, Levor, 186 
Bergrud, Torstein L., 186 
Bergum, Botolf E., 333 
Berry, B. K., 168 
Bilden, Nils, 90 
Bjaaland, Thorsten O., 47, 55, 56, 

62, 101, 175, 177, 178, 181, 256 
Bjelde, Johans K. See Melaas, J. K. 
Bjelde, Torsten O., 307 
Bjerva, Anders G., 292 
Bjoin (Bjaan), Aanund H., 163, 278 
Bjoin, Halvor, 279, 343, 348 
Bjono, Goe, 138, 139 
Bjorgaas, George J., 287 
Bjorgo, John H., 62, 101, 113, 182 
Bjorndokken, Anders J., 292 



Bjornson, Bjorn, 50, 239 

Bjornson, Ellef, 298 

Bjornson, Gabriel, 260, 263 

Bjortuft, Ragnild 

Bjortuft, Thorgrim O. 

Blakestad (Skavlem), G. H., 207 

Blegeberg, Gunder H. 

Bleie, Sjur S., 352 

Bloom, Captain, 301 

Bogstrandiet, Ole P., 206 

Boley, Ole, 343 

Bolstad, Nils L., 62, 101, 113, 168- 

171, 174, 175, 181 
Borlang, B. J., 344 
Borren, Ole B. Anderson, 373 
Boyum, Arne, 332 
Braaten, Ole O., 343 
Brekketo, Bjorn, 272 
Brenden, Ole T., 343 
Brendingen, Marthea, 214 
Brenna, Hans H., 302 
Brimsoe, Lars L., 93 
Bringa, Ole, 269 
Bringa, Tostein G., 245 
Broby, Jacob P., 365 
Brock, Captain, 310 
Brown, Lewis, 40 
Bruavolden, Ole, 203 
Bruavolden, Sjur T., 202, 203 
Brudvig, Ingebrigt, 100, 102 
Brunkow, Mrs. Martha, 304 
Brunsvold, Ola, 217 
Brunsvold, Asle, 217 
Braekke, Anders N., 150 
Brsekke, Hellik N., 143, 145 
Braekke. Knud, 150, 185 
Brsekke-Eiet, Halstein, 109, 110 
Buind. Ole A.. 186 
Bukaasa, Hans, 294 
Buo, Guttorm, 312 
Burtness, John, 217 
Burtness, Timan, 217 
Busness, Kjittil, 278 
Byst6Ien, Magne B., 150, 168-171 
Bsekhus, Alexander O., 252 
Baekhus, John, 257 
Ba:khus, Tollef, 257 
Bo, Baard Lawson, 200 
Bo, Christen M., 292 



INDEX 



393 



B6, Knut L., 182, 235 
Bo, Lars, 93 
Bo, Michael, 93 

Calberlane, Dr. John M., 38, 39 

Campbell, Mitchel, 167 

Cannteson, Oliver, 57 

Carstensen, Claes, 36, 57 

Cassem, Nels O., 358 

Cassem, Randall, 358 

Chelley, Lars, 355 

Christensen, Christian, 39 

Christianson, Hans, 348 

Clement, Erik, 371 

eleven, Kgil O., 283 

Clousen. Rev. C. F., 145 

CoUey, S. G., 137 

Dahl, Endre (Andrew), 47, 55, 59 

Dahl, Halvor E., 260 

Dahl, Knut, 346 

Dahlbotten, Botolf, 343 

Dahlbotten, Jon Michelson, 343 

Dahlbotten, Martha, 343 

Dahlbotten, Randt Botolfsdatter, 343 

Dahle, Johans, 276 

Dahle, Hans J., 345 

Dahle, Leif J., 338 

Dahle, O. B., 280, 346, 347 

Dahle, Svennung N., 331 

Dahlen, Anders, 278 

Dalen, Lars, 129 

Dale, John J., 163, 283 

Dale, Paul, 95 

Dale, Sjur, 95 

Dalos, Anon, 295 

Dalstiel, Halvor H., 188 

Danielson, Christopher, 96, 114 

Danielson, Gitle, 120, 222, 224, 227 

Danielson, Knud, 96 

Danielson, Ole, 344 

Darnell, Sarah, 113 

Dean, Erastus, 136 

Dejean, Joseph, 167 

Dietrichson, Rev. J. \V. C, 87, 94, 

144, 185, 210, 313 
Djonne, Torbjorn, 95 
Doksrud, Halvor H., 281 
Doksrud, Halvor L, 281 
Doksrud, Ingebret H., 281 
Donstad, Halvor, 254 



Downer, Stephen, 137 

Doyle, Simon, 231 

Droksvold, Niels, 271 

Droksvold, Ole, 271 

Droksvold, Sjur C, 260, 271 

Drotning, Aamund O., 248, 283 

Dugstad, Brynhild, 207 

Dugstad, Lars, 150, 175, 177, 179, 

180 
Dugstad, Erik K., 207 
Dusterud, Lars B., 340 
Dusterud, Peder, 340 
Dykesten, Lars K., 236 
Dyrland, Ole K., 81, 85, 246 
Dyvik, Ole, 101, 113 

Egery, Daniel D., 137, 205 

Eggum, Anna L., 260 

Eggum, Lars, 333 

Eide, Knud Olson, 44, 46, 49 

Eide, Knud Olson, 96 

Eide, Ole Thompson, 96 

Eielson, Elling, 75, 156, 158, 161, 

278, 280, 347 
Einarson, Nils, 342, 344 
Eiteklep, Thorkel, 364 
EUingsdatter, Anna, 338 
Ellingson, Elim, 8, 275, 276, 277 
Ellingson, Elling, 207 
Ellingson, Endre, 276 
Ellingson, Magela, 207 
Ellingson, Nils, 276 
Elseberg, Gulbrand, 342 
Enerson, Enert, 39 
Engebretson, M. J., 8, 203 
Engbrigtsen, Ole, 365 
Engen, Aadne, 217, 218 
Engen, Anders, 213, 267 
Engen, Erik, 343 
Engen, Hans, 213, 217 
Engen, Marie, 213 
Engesxter, Erik, 331 
Engesxter, JMichel J., 267, 269, 270 
Engesscter, John, 331 
ICrdahl, Ingcbrigt, 312 
Erdahl, Johannes, 312 
Erdahl, Nicolai, 312 
Erickson, Mrs. Martha, 239, 240 
Erickson, Michael, 360 
Erickson, Nils, 45, 47, 54 



394 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Espe, Lars O., 352, 354 
Espeland, Osten, 101, 114 
Espeseth, Halvor N., 364 
Esterly, George, 292 
Estrem, Chr. A., 372 
Evans, Dr. N. C, 8, 9 
Evanson, Christian, 346 
Evanson, Ragnild, 346 
Evanson, Christen, 218 
Evanson, Hadle, 295 
Evenson, Knut, 52 

Fadnes, Ragnild, 342 

Fagre, G. H., 366 

Falk, O. N., 9 

Farness, Erik C, 331 

Farness, Ole H., 331, 332 

Farness, Truls E., 332 

Felland, Gunder, 243 

Fellows, Joseph, 48 

Fenne, David L., 201, 202 

Fenne, Ivar, 203 

Fenne, Martha, 203 

Fenne, Nils, 201, 202 

Fenne, Per, 203 

Person, Baron Axel, 41 

Fingalpladsen, Gunder, 129 

Finno, Anders, 149, ISO, 171 

Finseth, A. K., 218 

Finseth, Herbrand, 218 

Finseth, Knut K., 218 

Fischer, Captain, 310 

Fjeld, Nils H., 87 

Fjose, see Kittilson 

Fjosne, Anne, 295 

Flaain, Anders J., 306, 309 

Flage, Anders, ISO, 231 

Flatland, Filing O., 268 

Flattre, Thormod S., 285 

Fliseram, Erik S. 

Flittre, Sjur, 295 

Flom, Anders O., 266, 306 

Flom (Flaam), Ole Torjussen, 265, 

266, 269, 270, 306, 309 
Flom, GuUeik T., 266 
Flom, Hans T., 309 
Flom, Knut T., 266 
Flom, Margrcthe A., 219 
Flom, M. O.. 9 
Flom, Ole O., 71, 266, 306 



Flom, Torjus, 266 

Follmer, George, 135 

Foslieiet, Hellik, 187 

Foslien, Even F., 208 

Fosseim, Halvor L., 245 

Fosseim, Ole L., 246 

Fossum, Hovel, 215 

Fossum, Ingebrigt, 214 

Frankrige, Johan, 214 

Frankrige, Sjugal, 215 

Friis, Captain Hans, 287 

Frondal, John J., 307, 338 

Fruland, Lars, 112 

Frye, Simon, 360 

Froland, Nils, 100, 112 

Froland, Peder, 334, 336 

Froslie, Bertha, 214 

Froslie, Helene, 215 

Froslie, Marit, 214 

Froslieit, Hans Engen, 214 

Fuglegjordet, Ingebrigt, 203, 274, 

303 
Fuglestad, Mrs. Bertha, 239, 240 
Funkelien, Halvor, 185 
Folie, Ivar, 274 
Folic, Joe, 274 
Fdlie, Lars O., 274 

Gaarden, Forstcin T., 188 

Gaarder, Gudbrand, 213 

Gaarder, Helene, 213 

Gaarder, Ole, 214 

Gaarder, Peter H., 213, 220, 222 

Gaarder, Syver, 214, 220 

Gabriel, Halvor, 348 

Gangsei, Ole, 345 

Garden, Ole T., 340 

Gasman, Capt. Hans, 297 

Gasman, Capt. Johan, 291, 297, 298 

Gilbertson, Ole, 233 

Gilbertson, Rachel, 134 

Gilderhus, Anna, 150 

Gilderhus, Nils S., 149, 168-170, 

174, 183, 185 
Gilderhus, Ole K., ISO, 181, 182, 

185, 233, 271 
Gilderhus, Ole S., 152, 200 
Gilderhus, StefTen K., 117, 233, 271 
Gjeirsme, Pcdcr T., 309 
Gjeirsme, Torbjorn O., 309 



INDEX 



395 



Gjcllum, Joseph J., 305 

GjcUum, Lars G., 307 

Gjellum, Simon A., 307, 308 

Gjerde, Johannes L., 312 

Gjerde, Pe(de)r L., 184, 267, 270 

Gjerdenc, Jakob I., 268 

Gjerdet, Jonas, 214 

Gjcrgjord, Aslak O., 253 

Gjcrgjord, Halvor O., 253 

Gjcrstad, Lars, 117, 126 

Gjilje, Peter O., 192, 197 

Gjostein, Knud, ISO 

Glaim, Hellik, 143, 144, 364 

Glenna, Halvor, 295 

Glimme, Knut L, 236 

Goeranson, Rev. Andrew, 42 

Grane, Lars, 207 

Granc, Olc. 182 

Grane, Rasmus, 182 

Grane, Sjur, 207 

Grane, Tollef, 295 

Grasdalen, Halvor H., 340, 341 

Grasdalen, Nels H., 340 

Gravdal, Gilbert, 145 

Gravdal, GuUik O., 138, 139, 140, 

144, 222. 
Gravdal, Olc, 144, 145 
Gravdal, Tolee, 144, 145 
Gravdal, Sarah, 145 
Grave, Gro, 281 
Grellet, Stephen, 76 
Grimestad, Klaus, 152, 200, 233 
Grimsgaard, Lars, 217 
Grimsgaard, Ole K., 366 
Grimsrud, Helge S., 249, 250 
Grimsrud, Sigurd, 249 
Grinde, liotolf J., 305 
Grinde, Ole A., 343 
Grinde, Sjur, 332 
Grindemelum, 301 
Gromstu, Torgus T., 41 
Gromstulcn, Peter J., 301 
Grov, Erik L., 305 
Groven, Aslak E-, 246 
Groven, H. H., 368, 371 
Grundstad, G. E., 360 
Gronna, Thomas A., 366 
Gronstcen, Asbcrg, 292 
Gronsteen, Johans, 292 
Gronsteen, John, 292, 294 



Gronsteen, Ole T., 291 

Groth, Halstein, 365 

Grotrud, Gunhild, 263 

Gr5trud, Nils T., 262 

Gudbrandson, Erik, 206 

Gulack, Tolee, see Gravdal 

Gulberg, Arne 

Gulbrandson, Gulbrand, 206 

Guldbrandson, Kristi, 263 

Guldbrandson, Mari, 186 

Gullikson, Ole, 371 

Gulliksrud, Torstcn Ingebrigtson, 111 

Gulseth, Even, 295 

Gulvsdatter, Martha, 307 

Gunalc, Mrs., 139, see Odcgaarden 

Gunderson, Anders, 292 

Gunderson, Ashley, 203 

Gunderson, Tallak, 364 

Gunnulson, Ole, 173 

Guttormson, Guul, 220 

Guul, Gultorm, 220 

Gvaale, Johannes J., 338 

Ovale, Tollef H., 312 

Haaheim, Sjur, 95 
Haaland, Syver O., 295, 296 
Ilaatvcdt, Christoffer S., 293 
Ilaatvedt, I^ven, 208 
Ilaatvcdt, Ole, 292 
Haatvedt, Ole A., 208, 252 
Haave, Erik L, 303 
Haave, Elling, 273 
Haave, Ingebrict, 273 
Haave, Ivar L, 273 
Haave.John L., 273 
Haave, Lars Jensen, 274 
Haave, Urs J., 273, 274 
Haave, Ole L., 273 
Haaverud, Jul, 345 
Hadland, Steinar E., 208 
Hadley, Peter, 296 
Hage, Samuel, 360 
Hall, Ren, 360 
Hallan, see Ove C. Johnson 
Halland, Gisle, 137, 138, 143 
Halringa, Mons, 270 
Halsten, Ever, 342, 343 
Halvorson, Goodman, 356 
Halvorson, Gunder O., 149 
Halvorson, Halvor, 145, 298 



396 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Halvorson, Mrs. John, 263 

Halvorson, Kleofas, see Hansemoen 

Halvorson, Lars, 342, 345 

Halvorson, Tallev 

Hamre, Juul G., 187, 261 

Hansemoen, Erik, 216 

Hansemoen, Halvor K., see Kleofas 

Hansemoen, Hans, see Husemoen 

Hansemoen, Kleofas H., 216, 217, 
220 

Hansen, Hans, 36 

Hanson, Alex H., 154 

Hanson, C. F., 154 

Hanson, Claus, 293 

Hanson, Hans, 292 

Hanson, Ole, 364 

Hanson, Ole H., 154 

Hanson, Mrs. W. O., 145 

Harald, Fairhair, 83 

Harlow, John, 167 

Harrison, General, 201 

Harrisville, Knud K., 237 

Harrisville, Maren K., 238 

Harstad, Kjogei, 281 

Harvig, Henry C, 47, 54, 57 

Hasle, Ovre, 302 

Haslerud, Peter P., 344 

Hastvedt, Peter K., 293 

Hastvedt, Torger, 345 

Hatlestad, Anna, 284 

Hatlestad, Jens O., 284, 286 

Hatlestad, O. J., 286 

Haugaas, Gudmund, 47, 55, 57 

Haugan, Knut, 283 

Hauge, Anders, 368 

Hauge, Halvor N., 347, 348 

Hauge, Hans Nielsen, 75, 279 

Haugen, Andreas, 129 

Haugen, Baard, 101, 113 

Haugen, Engebret, 372 

Haugen, Gjermund, 133 

Haugen, Gunnul, 133 

Haugen, Halvor P., 127, 128, 129, 

130 
Haugen, Hans G., 127, 133 
Haugen, Kjittil, 281 
Haugen, Knut, 283 
Haugen, Nils, 217, 222 
Haugen, Ole, 43, 44 
Haugen, Ole O., 188 



Haugen, Ole T., 368 

Haugen, Peder, 129 

Haugen, Staale T., 368 

Haugerud, Anfin A., 271 

Haugerud, Lars, 129 

Haugholt, Halvor P., 281, 282 

Haukaas, Hans O., 338 

Haukelien, Lars P., 260 

Haukness, Ole, 332 

Haukom, Ole O., 281, 283 

Havey, see Haeve, Ole 

Havredalen, Torbjorn, 188 

Hawkos, Tollef O., 338 

Hayer, A., 115 

Hedejord, Edward, 283 

Hedejord, Liv, 283 

Hedejord, Ole O., 283 

Hedle, Knut K., 286 

Hedle, Mathias, 286 

Hedle, Peter, 286 

Hefte, Bj6rn, 295 

Hefte, John A., 236 

Heg, Even H., 159, 160, 161, 183, 

187, 201, 222, 246, 284 
Heg, Hans C, 161, 284 
Heg, Ole E., 284 
Hegglund, Mrs. Anna, 356 
Hei, Ole, 217 
Heier, Ole, 115 
Helgcson, Erik, 297 
Helgeson, Gjermund, 192 
Helgeson, Peter, 365 
Helgeson, Tore, 206 
Helle, Ingebrigt J., 81, 227, 251 
Helle, Metta, 45 
Helle, Thomas, 45 
Hemsing, Ole H., 312 
Hemsing, Ole O., 312 
Henderson, Bryngel, 236 
Hendricks, Annecken, Z7 
Hendricks, Helletje, 36, 37 
Hendrickson, Charles, 341 
Hendrickson, Christian, 202, 341 
Hendrickson, Henry, 341 
Herbrandson, Ole, 363 
Herre, Nils, 295 

Hersdal, Cornelius N., 46, 54, 55 
Hersdal, Nels N., 47, 56, 59 
Hesgard, Halvor, 217, 218 
Hesla, Asle, 217 



INDEX 



397 



Hesla, Svend E.. 217 
Hetletvedt, Jacob O., 192, 197 
Iletletvedt, K. O., 92 
Hetletvedt. Ole Olson, 47, 56, 57, 

59, 62, 89, 355 
Hidle, see John Hill 
Hilbeitson, Erik, 206 
Hilbeitson, Jas., 206 
Hill, John, 93, 355, 356 
Himle, Ammund, 334 
Himle, Odd J., 101, 113, 168-171, 

310, 334 
Hippe, Ole H., 312 
Hiser, Lena, 132 
Hoff, Arne, 343 
Hoff, Harald, 343 
Hogenson, Ole, 159 
Holgerson, Gunnel, 206 
Holland, Bjorn, 295 
Holland, E. S., 357 
Holmes, Joshua, 135 
Holmes, Thomas, 135 
Holmes, William, 135 
Holo, Lars J., 153, 262 
Holo, Martin, 262 
Holt, Bredo, 364 
Holt, Daniel, 347 
Holt, Jens, 364 
Holtan, Gudbrand G., 261 
Holtan, Hellek O., 212 
Holtan, Levor, 259, 260 
Holtan, Nils T., 263 
Holtan, Ole, 248 
Holtan, Ole G., 261, 262 
Holton, Levi, see Levor Holtan 
Holum, Ole S., 332 
Holum, Stephen, 332 
Holven, Aslak, 96 
Homme, Rev. G., 284 
Homme, John, 284 
Homstad, Mathias, 286 
Homstad, Ole, 286 
Hornefjeld, Amund Anderson, 92, 

175, 176, 179, 256 
Hougen, John O., 251 
Hovdelien, Ole, 215 
Hove, Erik E., 201, 203 
Hove, Iver, 69 
Hovland, Gjert, 52, 56, 61, 62, 80, 

83, 222 



Hovland, Halvor N, 354 
Hoyme, Christoffer T. 
Hulderoen, see Tellefson 
Hundere, Anders S., 312 
Hundkjiolen, Jens, 281 
Husebo, Ole I., 267, 269, 270 
Husebo, Synneva, 247 
Husemoen, Hans, 216, 217 
Husemoen, Kari, 217. 
Huset, Halvor, 291 
Huset, Ole, 291 
Iluset, Tollef Gunnufson, 281 
Husevold, John, 281 
Hustad, Knut, 364 
Hustvedt, Bjorn O., 254 
Hustvedt, Bj5rn S., 254 
Husvaeret, Torkild, 302 
Hvasshovd, Gunder G., 186 
Hvasshovd, Hellik G., 186 
Hydle, Sjur, 295 
Hylle, Knud J., 152, 200, 201 
Hoeve, Henrik O., 248, 271 
Hceve, Ole, 248 
H6gstul, Osmond O., 295 
Hogstul, Tostein H., 295 
Hoverstad, Rev. Helge, 8 

Indb^ggen, Even T., 338 

Ingebretson, Erik, 39 

Ingebretson, Gaute, 81, 250 

Ingebretson, Lucas, 292 

Ingusland, Osten, 281 

Inman, Mrs. C. E., 145 

Inman, John, 135 

Isakson, Guru, 208 

Isham, Chauncey, 167 

Iverson, Captain, 41 

Iverson, Cathrine, 58 

Iverson, Halvor, 47 

Iverson, Lars (Medaas), 372 

Iverson, Lewis, 248 

Iverson, Ole, 248 

Iverson (of Georgia), Senator, 41 

Jacobson, Rev. A,, 8, 70, 369, 370 
Jacobson, Anders, 205 
Jacobson, Henry, Mrs., 207 
Jacobson, Ole, 8, 300, 301 



398 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Jacobson, John, 163 

Jacobson, Peter, 285 

Jansen, Eric, 74 

Jeglum, Lars, 366 

Jellarviken, Halvor, 120 

Jensen, Captain, 96 

Jensvold, Hovel, 214 

Jermo, Marie L., 113 

Jevne, Ole G., 368 

Johanneson, Johannes, 156, 158, 160 

Johnson, Andrew, 231 

Johnson, Aufin, 231 

Johnson, Baard, 95, 231 

Johnson, Baruld, 261 

Johnson, David, 232 

Johnson, Ellef, 303 

Johnson, Fingar, 364 

Johnson, George, 47, 56 

Johnson, Gjermund, see Kaasa 

Johnson, Ingeborg, 179 

Johnson, Isak, 202 

Johnson, John, 231 

Johnson, John A., 227 

Johnson, John E., 308 

Johnson, J. W., 8, 282 

Johnson, Lars, 348 

Johnson, Michael, 343, 344 

Johnson, Nels, 369, see Kaasa 

Johnson, Ole, 47, 54 

Johnson, Ove C. 

Johnson, Sjur 

Johnson, Syver, 203, 302 

Johnson, Thomas, 40 

Johnson, Torris, 357 

Jone, Ole, 334 

Jones, John Paul, 40 

Jones, Milo, 135 

Jordgrev, Kittil, 294 

Juul, Rev. E. P., 306 

Juve, Knut A., 83, 244, 245, 246 

Jaeger, Knut, 365 

Jorandlien, Tarald, 213 

Jorlien, see Jorandlien 

Jordre, Nils L., 100 

Kaasa, Gjermund O., 222 

Kaasa, Gjermund Johnson, 120, 121, 

158, 369 
Kaasa, Jens O., see Olson 
Kaasa, Jorgen, 272 



Kaasa, Kittil O., 272 

Kaasa, Nils Johnson, 120, 158, 285 

Kaasa, Ole, 235, 272 

Kaasa, Thor O., 186, 235, 272, 274 

Kaasne, Jacob, 295 

Kalberlahn, Catharine, 39 

Kallerud, Bergit N., 130 

Kasberg, Rev. K. A., 8, 187, 261, 263 

Kearney, Philip, 167 

Keen, Andrew, 42 

Kirkejord, Thore H., 128, 134, 137 

Kirkejord, Torsten H., 128, 130 

Kittilson, Levi, 259, 262 

Kittelson, Ole, 300 

Kittilsland, Ole T., 363 

Kjonaas, Ole, 120 

Kjylaa, Sven, 197 

Kjolen, Halvor, 260 

Kjosvik, Hans J., 338 

Kleiva, Johannes, 273 

Kleofas, Halvor, 217 

Kleofas, Knud, 217 

Klevmoen, Helene, 213 

Klomset, Sven S., 281 

Klove, Lars, 295 

Knit, Rognald J., 307 

Knudson, Gullik, 141, 142 

Knudson, Tollef, 282 

Knutson (Springen), Gunder, 146 

Knutson, Mikkel, 338 

Knutson, Oliver, 57 

Kolskett, Michel, 343 

Kolsrud, Erik, 217 

Kosa, Anne, 291 

Kossin, John, 281 

Kostvedt, Aslak, 243 

Kostvedt, Halvor, 252, 253 

Kravik, Halvor, 187, 261, 263 

Kravik, Lars C, 263 

Kristensen, Knut, 143 

Kristian IV, King of Denmark, 35 

Kroken, Mathias H., 281 

Kroken, Ole H., 120 

Krostu, Rev. G. G., 8 

Kvale, Rev. O. J., 8 

Kvamodden, Nils, 9, 300 

Kvarma, Sjur K., 207, 209 

Kvarma, Kolhein, 209 

Kvarve, Levor, 218 

Kvarve, Tideman, 218 



INDEX 



399 



Kvelve, see Anderson 
Kvendalen, Lars, 179, 180 
Kvendalen, Nils, 181 
Kvisterud, Knud S., 283, 340, 341 
Kvistcrud, Ole, 340 

Laplin, Mathew, 157 
Land, Ellef, 371 
Land, Lars, 371 
Landeman, Thomas J., 188 
Landsverk, Johan, 278, 279 
Landsverk, Ole, 279 
Landsverk, Peder J., 278 
Langeland, Knud, 48, 93, 97, 112, 

157, 284, 335, 336, 348 
Langeland, Malina, 112 
Langeland, Nils P., 97, 99, 101, 110, 

112 
Langeland, Dr. Peter, 285 
Langemyr, Lars, 342 
Langeteig, Anders, 335 
Larsen, Bendik, 373 
Larson, Erik 
Larson, Rev. G. A., 8 
Larson, Georgiana, 46 
Larson, Gunder, 134 
Larson, Haakon, 349 
Larson, Ivar, 372 
Larson, Johan, 95, 231 
Larson, John, 285 
Larson, Knud 
Larson i Jeilane, Lars, 45, 46, 49, 

SO, 60, 76, 91 
Larson, Mrs. Louis O., 132 
Larson, Mary, 148, 303 
Larson, Ole, 309 
Larson, Sara, 47 
Larson, Svend, 204 
Laugen, G., see Springen 
Laugen, Trond, 373 
Lawrence, Ole, 349 
Lawson (Larson) Canute, 232 
Lawson, Iver, 112, 232, 237 
Lawson, Victor F., 113 
Lee, Andrew E., 185 
Lee, Christian, 238 
Lee, Erik, 185 
Lee, Johan, 350 
Lee, Lars J., 295 
Lee, Ole Aslak 



Leidal, Anfin, 149 
Lekvold, Ole S., 366 
Leland, Brynjulf, 310 
I^enaas, O. O., 259 
Lenvick, Ole, 347 
Lia, John, 298 
Lia, Ole, 294, 298 
Lia, Mathias, 295 
Lie, Anders N., 182, 183, 184 
Lie, Brynild L., 207 
Lie, Haaken, 308, 310 
Lie, Johannes, 276 
Lie, Lars O., 207, 208 
Lie, N. A., 8, 150, 183 
Lien, Bjdrn, 294 
Lien, Henrik, 309 
Lien, Lars, 173 
Lien, Levor, 343 
Lien, Tone, 244 
Lier, Knut O., 260, 261 
Lier, Lars, 173 
Lier, Ole, 174 
Lillebsk, Hans, 303 
Lillebsek, Kari, 302 
Lima, Simon, 47 
Lindelien, Knut J., 343 
Loe, Ole, 312 
Lofthus, Olav 0., 95 
Lohner, Halvor N., 120 
Lommen, Andrew A., 368 
Lommen, O. A., 368, 371 
Losen, John S., Sr., 373 
Losen, John S., Jr., 373 
Lothe, Svein K., 95, 231 
Loven, Johanne M., 307 
Loven, Peder M., 307 
Lund, Iver, 343 
Lund, Paul, 261 
Lund, Svend L., 312 
Lunde, Christian, 149 
Lunde, Gulleik, 292 
Lunde, Gunder H., 291 
Lunde, Halvor A., 292 
Lunde, Osmund, 243, 252 
Lundene, Anders, 343 
Lundsxter, Anders, 213 
Lundsaeteren, Osten, 215 
Luraas, Halvor O., 120, 158, 311 
Luraas, John N., 68, 70, 120, 15S 
167, 222, 241, 242, 249 



400 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Luraas, Knut N., 120, 158 
Luraas, Nils J., 249 
Luraas, Torger 0., 120, 158 
Lybaek, Bertha, 214 
Lybaek, Johans, 214 
Lydvo, Knud, 117, 126, 149 
Lydvo, Nils, 126, 149 
Lydvo, Ole, 117, 126, 149 
Lydvo, Randver, 235, 236 
Lyse, Gilbert C, 368 
Lysenstoen, Halvor L., 163 
Lokken, Hans, 286 
Lokken, Ole, 286 
Lokken, Peter, 286 
Lokken, Tyke H., 286 
Lonflok, Halvor T., 120 
Lonning, Amund, 353 
Lonning, Gertrud, 352 

Maakestad, Helge H., 352 
Maakestad, Omund Helgeson (Hil- 

leson), 95, 351, 352 
Maakestad, Torgels, see Newton 
Maanem, Tore, 343 
Maaren, Gunuld K., 281 
Maaren, Sondre N., 278 
Madland, Thomas, 46, 54, 56, 57, 58 
Mandt, Gunnar T., 82, 246, 247 
Mans, Martha, 39 
Markoe, Abraham, 41, 42 
Marsett, Peter C, 58 
Mason, C. M., 295 
Mastre, Nils E., 251 
Mathieson, Halvor, 295 
Mathieson, Helge, 120 
Maurset, Peder J., 100 
Mayhew, Wm. M., 166 
Medaas, see Iverson 
Megaarden, Kristen, 217 
Melaas, Kristen L., 267 
Melaas, Kristi, 227, 268 
Melaas, Johans K., 269 
Melaas, Mons L., 267 
Melaas, Ole A., 269, 270 
Melaas, Mrs. Ole, 312 
Meland. Helge, 203 
Meland, Osten G., 278 
Melland, Harald, 303 
Menes, Ole O., 69, 70. 81, 310 



Midboe, Tarald E., 260 
Midboen, Anders, 213 
MidbSen, Erick G., 110, 111 
Midboen, Gunder G., Ill 
Midthus, Svein L., 100 
Milebon, Hans A., 290 
Milesten, Halvor O 
Mills, Dennis, 137 
Mitchell, Franklin, 137 
Mitchell, John S., 58 
Mo, Olav L., 234 
Modum, Halvor, 287 
Modum, Thov, 208 
Moe, Peder H., 260 
Mogen, Kari G., 228 
Moland, Kittil 
Molee, John E., 120, 163 
Monsdatter, Ragnhilde, 307 
Monson, Mons, 373 
Munk, Jens, 35, 36 
Munson, Henry, 356 
Murray, William S 
Mygstue, Gullik O., 211, 212 
Mygstue, Ole, 212 
Myhra, Gudbrand, 128, 130 
Myhra, Jens G., 128, 130, 132 
Myhre, Ole, 278 
Myren, Ole, 284 
Myrkeskog, Edlend, 277 
Myrkeskog, Ole, 277 
Mon, Lars J., 182 
Morkvold, Bjorn G., 186 
Morkvold, Ole H., 186 

Naas, Knut K., 332 
Narum, Nels H., 281, 282 
Narverud, Syvert L, 159 
Narvig, Ingebrigt Larson, 52,53, 114 
Natesta(d), Henry, 8, 132 
Nattestad, Ansten, 84, 108, 110, 116, 

118, 127, 132, 133, 138, 205, 224, 

227 
Nattestad, Charles, 132 
Nattestad, Eliza, 131 
Nattestad, James, 132 
Nattestad, Knud, 132 
Nattestad, Ole, 67, 84, 102, 108, 109, 

110, 116, 127, 132, 133, 135, 137, 

205 



INDEX 



401 



Nedcrliaiigen, ICrik, 213 

Nederhaugen, Jolians, 214 

Nelson, Aad, 197 

Nelson, Carrie, 5S, 56, 58 

Nelson, Christ, 193 

Nelson, Groe, 144, 145 

Nelson, Mrs. Gustav, 134 

Nelson, Mrs. Ingeborg, 296 

Nelson, Inger, 58, 151 

Nelson, Ira, 59 

Nelson, Jocum, 373 

Nelson, Mrs. Julia, 235 

Nelson, Knute, 297 

Nelson (Brckke), Lars, 346, 349 

Nelson, Martha. 58 

Nelson, Nels, 58 

Nelson, Nils, 193 

Nelson, Peter, 59 

Nelson, Peter, 235 

Nelson, Peter C, 58 

Nelson, T., 128, 134 

Nelson, T. T., 134 

Ness, Halvor, 217 

Ness, Mons, 345 

Newhouse, see Nyhus 

Newton, T. M., 8, 352, 353 

Nicholson, Henry, 233 

Nicholson, John G., 233 

Nilsen, Ole, 292 

Nilson, F. O., 76 

Nilson, Ilalvor, 92 

Nilson, Hcrino, 162, 278, 279, 280, 

347 
Nilson, Nels, 279 
Nil.son, Prof. Svein, 67, 256 
Nilson, Thorstein, 205 
Nirison, Kittil, 237 
Nisson, Halvor, 281 
Noorman, Claes, 63 
Noormaii, Hans, 36 
Nordboe, Johan, 52, 122, 153 
Nordbo, Harald, 294 
Nordbci, Hans, 294 
Xordby, Rev. J. S. 
Xord-Fossum, Lars, 213 
Nnrdt;aarden, Gjermon T. 
Nordvig, Anders, 100, 112 
Nordvig, Ingcbrigt, 101 
Nore, Gjertriid, 256 
Nore, Gro, 256 



Nore, Lars, 185 
Nore, Knud, 185 
Nore, Ole, 185 
Nore, Ssebjorn, 185 
Nore, Tore K, 185, 255 
Norman, see B.'ekhus 
Nubbru, Even, 109 
Nuinedal, Anders H., 273 
Niimedal, Endre H., 273 
Nummeland, Ole, 282, 298 
Nyhus, Kittil, 128, 130, 206, 208 
Nyhus, Kristoffer, 128, 130, 134, 

137, 208 
Nyhus, Ole C, 206, 208 
Nyre, Baard, 152, 223 
Naes, Peter, 298 
Nsset, Aadne E., 246 
NKset, Ingebrigt, 309 
Nffsct, Jens J., 309, 311, 312 
Naeset, Johannes J., 309, 311 
Nseset, John J., 309 
Naeset, Ole E., 246 
Na:seth, Gunder K., 300 
Naeshaug, see Wilson, 207 
Naestestu, Asmund A., 253 
Norstelien, Christine, 214 
Norstelien, Ole, 214 
Norstelien, Svend, 302 
Nosterud, Margit, 140 

OPFiiRDAL, Herniund O., 305 
Olmstead, Benson C, 59 
Olnistead, Charles B., 59 
Olmstead, George, 58 
Ollis, John, 333 
Olsdatter, Bergit, 163 
Olsdatter, Guro, 188 
Olson, Aase, 284 
Olson, .\mbj6r, 130 
Olson, Borre 
Olson, Christian, 52, 57 
Olson, Christie, 148 
Olson, Christoffer, 287 
Olson, Eilif, 338 
Olson, Ellen, 113 
Olson, Gndbrand, 206 
Olson, Ingeborg, 284 
Olson, James W., 59 
Olson, Jens, 235, 272 
Olson, John T., 287 



402 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Olson, Lars, 45, 46, 54, 109 

Olson, Leif, 344 

Olson, Nils, 192 

Olson, Olaf, 349 

Olson, Ole T., 92 

Olson, Ole Vendelbo, 269, 270 

Olson, Ommund, 192 

Olson, Porter C, 59 

Olson, Salve, i7i 

Olson, Soren L., 59 

Olson, Thorsten, see Bjaaland 

Olson, Tosten, 291 

Omli, Mikkel, 368, 371 

Ommelstad, Harald, 213 

Ommedstarssekeren, Johannes, 214 

Onsgaard, Ole, 218 

Opdahl, Knut, 369, 371 

Opsal, Gunder C, 292 

Opsal, John C, 291 

Opsal, Nils, 292 

Orsland, Canute, 118 

Orsland, Hallock, 118 

Orsland, Harry B., 118 

Ortzland, Anna M., 359 

Orvedal, Ole J., 274 

Osmond, Mrs. Austin, 93, 355 

Osmond, Herman A., 94 

Osmonson, Herman, 355 

Osmundson, Isabella, 154 

Osuldson, Bertie, 364 

Overholt, Nils J., 301 

Overson, Frank, 283 

Overson, Ole, see Haukom 

Overvind, Captain, 260 

Ovestrud, Erik, 218 

PaaskE, Alexander, 43 

Patterson, Torgen, 147 

Paulson, Hovel, 148 

Paulson, Sakarias, 42 

Pederson, Gunild, 282 

Pederson, Guro, 312 

Peerson, Kleng, 44, 46, 48, 49, 53, 

55, 62, 101, 117, 125, 190, 191, 

192, 239 
Peerson, Samuel, 92 
Person, C, 193 
Person, Georgia na, 46 
Peterson, Frank, 43 
Peterson, Mrs. Holger, 365 



Peterson, John, 360 
Peterson, Nels, 349 
Peterson, O. P., 78 
Pond, Daniel, 167 
Pratt, Oscar H., 137 
Prentice, John, 167 
Prestegaard, Nils, 143 
Preus, Rev. .\. C, 338 
Puttckaasa, Christen, 297 

QuALA, Johannes J., 285 
Quale, Ellend T., 312 
Quale, Iver P., 369 
Quale, John J., 368 
Quamme, Hans H., 333 
Quammen, Aslak K., 312 
Quammen, Ole L., 312 

Ramlo, Tarald 

Ramstad, Helge, 364 

Rasdall, Abel, 166 

Reierson, Johan R., 86, 87 

Reierson, Ole, 192 

Reinke, Abraham, 39 

Rckve, lUrs D., 149, 150, 181, 199, 

271 
Reque, Reverend L. S. J., 337, 338 
Reque, Sjur S., 335 
Rice, J. G., 372 
Richey, Will F., 59 
Richey, William W., 59 
Richolson, Lars, 115 
Rime, Henrik, 217 
Rime, Tollef, 217 
Rinden, Kittil, 243, 244 
Rio, Erik V., 271 
Rio, Knut T., 295 
Rio, Torstein, 296, 297 
Risetter, Haakon, 354 
Risetter, Lars, 352, 353 
Robertson, David, 167 
Roe, Anne, 242, 248 ■ 
Roe, Hans, 297 
Roe, Helleik, 248 
Roe, Knut H., 154, 162, 167, 241, 

242, 243, 248 
Roe, Nils, 217 
Roen, Guttorm, 217 
Roen, Ole, 217 
Rogde, Jacob O., 354 
Roknc, Knut E., 152, 200, 271 



INDEX 



403 



Rom, Bjorn O., 260 

Kdniorcii, Sjur I., 305 

Konvc, Brynjulf, ISi, 200, 233 

Rosholt, Halvor, 297 

Rosholt. Jacob, 297 

Ross, Mrs. Eric, 240 

Rossadal, Daniel S. 46, 56, 59, 90 

Rossadal, Johan S., 90 

Rossadal, Ove S., 90 

Rosseland, Anuind, 100, 177 

Rosseland, Sjur E.. 100 

Rostad, Kristopher, 147 

Rostad, Lars, 148 

Roswall, Ingebret, 286 

Rosoino, Peder, 120 

Rothnem, Ole L., 366 

Rotkjon, Aslak B., 187 

RotkjSn, Richard B., 187 

Rue, John, 192 

Rue, John N., 110 

Rue, Kittil, 365 

Rue, Thorstein, 192, 197. 

Rue, Thorstein T., 125 

Rue, Mrs. Thorstein T., 192, 197 

Rue, Tosten Thoinp.son, 340 — Thor- 
stein Thorson Rue, see above 

Rustad, Abraham, 364 

Rustad, Aslak, 217 

Rust, Mikkel, 217 

Rund. Ilalvor, 214 

Rund, Kittil O., 219 

Rund, Margit, 219 

Rygh, Halvor, Sr., 360 

Rynning, Rev. Jens, 107 

Rynning, Ole, 85, 100, 102, 103, 107, 
118, 122, 199, 283 

Riiisland, Tallecf, 282, 293 

Rolje, Donant, 264 

Ronningen, Abraham K., 260 

Ronningen, Anders Jacobson, 281 

Ronningen, Erick K., 260 

Ronningen, Torbjiirn K., 260 

Roste, Arne, 343 

Ri3ste, Lars, 139, 213 

R6the, Ears T., 152, 200, 233 

Rothe, Nils, 62, 95, 231, 236 

Rothe, Torbjor, 231 

S.^AM.\NDSDATTER, Gunhild, 138 

Sagdalen, 218 



St. John, Samuel, 136 

Sakrison, Simon, 295 

Salvcson, Engelbrct, 297 

Salveson, Ilalvor, 297 

Sampson, Samuel, 8, 337 

Sandanger, Endre P., 371 

Sande, Joe, 276 

Sanden, Embrigt 

Sanden, Ole, 364 

Sanderson, Erik, 219 

Sanderson, Ole, 280 

Sando, Ole, 217 

Sandsbcrg, Andreas, 69 

Sandsberg, Gudmund, 51, 57, 69, 70 

Sandsberg, Marie, 51 

Sane, Gulleik T., 171, 200. 233, 264 

Sane, Kolbein O., 101, 113 

Sane, Lars, 200 

Sane, Styrk O., 101, 113, 264 

Sane, Torstein, 200, 233 

Savig, Erick J., 92 

Savig, Ingeborg, 92 

Savik, Anne B., 178 

Savik, Erik, 177, 178, 179 

Savik, John, 178 

Scheldal, Lars, 360 

Scheldal, Rasmus, 360 

Schaerdalen, Ole, 265 

Scofftedt, Mrs. Martin, 132 

Sebbe, Ilcnrik E.. 78, 92 

Seim, Anfin J., 266, 267, 270 

Seim, Nils T., 267, 270 

Selseng, Nils O., 312 

Selseng, Ole, 268 

Selseng, O. P., 252 

Selseng, Thorstein T., 268, 311 

Severts, Lewis, 207 

Severt.son, Ellef G., 236 

Severtson, Ole, 207 

Shelby, Halvor, 338 

Sherburne, John Henry, 40, 41 

Slicrping, Kristen, 312 

Slierping, Per, 312 

Shipley, Ole, 207 

Sigurdson, Helge, 163 

Simerson, Simon, 70 

Simon, Knut, 219 

Simons, William G., 167 

Simonson, .\ndrew, 125, 191, 192 

Simonson, Tollef, 369, 371 



404 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Sjurson, Ole, 295 

Sjutvett, Ole, 341 

Skaakn, Ole, 217 

Skare, Halvor O., 285 

Skarie. J. H., 287 

Skarshaug, Ingbret, 364 

Skavlem, Bessie, 145 

Skavlem, Erik, 128 

Skavlem, Gullik, 143, 144 

Skavlem, Halvor L., 9, 143, 145, 

146, 205 
Skavlem, Kari, 143 
Skavlem, Lars H., 141, 143, 144, 

145, 206 
Skavlem, Ole, 143 
Skavlem, Paul H., 143, 145, 206 
Skeie, Lars G., 100, 175 
Skinrud, Erik O., 343 
Skipnes, Anders J., 290 
Skjerve, Knut S., 285, 287 
Skjerveim, Peder Davidson, 152, 

199, 200, 201, 202, 232 
Skofstad, Johannes E., 159 
Skogen, Christian O., 342 
Skogen, Nils, 342 
Skotland, Tore P., 371 
Skuldt, Ole, 345 
Skutle, Ole, 208 
Skutle, Thorbjorn, 337, 338 
Slettene, Aslak R., 301 
Slinde, Ole A., see Melaas, O. A. 
Slogvig. Jacob A., 47, 55, 57, 84, 

128, 193, 196, 197 
Slogvig, Knud A., 47, 55, 56, 61, 

62, 63, 84, 91, 97, 111, 125, 192, 

197. 
Slseen. Erik E., 208 
Smeby, Hovel, 214 
Smeby, Ole, 215 
Smed, se« Syver Johnson 
Smedsrud, Engcbret, 302 
Smcdsrud, Johannes E., 303 
Smedsrud, Mathias, 302 
Smehogen, Johannes, 302 
Smekaasa, Anders, 281 
Smetbok, Niels O., 186 
Smith, John G., 181 
Smithbak, Tore E.. 259 
Solem, John E., 216 



Solem, Knud E-, 216 

Solheim, Anna, 182 

Solvi, Erik, 341 

Sondal, Lena, 207 

Sonde, Ole, 364 

Sonve, Mads, 152, 200, 233 

Soppeland, Ole, 193 

Spaanem, Kathrine 

Spaanem, Tore T., 340 

Spears, Robert, 168 

Spilde, Lars, 234 

Spillom, Elling, 286 

Spillom, Hendrik, 286 

Spillom, Mikkel, 286 

Spillom, Ole, 286 

Springen, Gullik, 141, 142, 206 

Stabaek, Clemet T., 147, 209, 222 

Staba?k, Helen, 209 

Staba?k, Narve, 149 

Stabrek, Torsten K. O.. 147 

Stadhem, Andrew O., 273 

Stadhem, Johanna, 276 

Stadhem, Ole, 273 

Stake, Arne K., 366 

Stalsbraaten, Klemet L,. 261 

Stalsbraaten, Halvor, 261 

Stamm, Elling, 345 

Stangeland, Andrew, 47, 54, 118 

Steen, Severine Catherine, 107 

Steenhjerde, Ole N., 305 

Steensland, Halle, 349 

Stene, Ivar J., 307 

Stene, Johannes, 47 

Stewart, Samuel T., 166 

Stille, John, 42, 43 

Stokkeberg, Susanna, 39 

StonJal, Bjorn A., 254, 283 

Stordok, Gunnul, 141, 142, 146, 148, 

211 
Stordok, Halvor. 129, 211 
Stordok, Inge, 211 
Stordok, Knud, 211 
Stordok, Ole, 211 
Storlag, Ole O., 366 
Storlie, Ole O., 281 
Strandskongen, Baruld J., 260 
Stub, Hans A., 287 
Stubberud, Halvor J., 260 
Stundal, Sjur O., 307 
Sube, HKge O., 263 



INDEX 



405 



Sunilliii, Gunlcik T., 245 
Sundc, Gjermund K., 172, 173 
Sunve, Maline, 203 
Sunve, Nils, 203 
Svalestuen, Gunleik O., 338 
Svalestuen, Knud, 85, 159 
Svartskuren, Carl, 257 
Svartskuren, Pedcr L., 256, 261 
Sver.snid, Gullik, 341 
S\inibil, Thore K., 110, 111 
Svinalie, Erik, 120 
Swerge, Peder H., 291 
Sselahakka, Gjertrud O., 186 
Saere, Sjur M., 236 
Sseter, Ingebrigt, 129 
Sogal, Andrea, 289 
Sogal, Anne, 289 
Sugal, Johanna, 289 
Si3gal, Karen, 289 
S.lgal, Kari, 289 
S<jgal, Ole A., 289 
Soruin, Andreas, 214 
Sorum, Bertha, 215 
Sorum, Soren, 213, 363, 365 
Sotholt, Amund S., 281 
Sotholt, Soren S., 281 

Taasinge, Andreasen, 42 

Tallakson, Lars, 94, 192, 193, 197 

Tamncs, Christen 

Tangen, Mary, 134 

Tangen, Peder A., 224 

Tasker, Daniel, 137 

Tastad, Elias, 45, 76 

Teigen, Dr. K. M., 228 

Teigen, Lars J., 301 

Teigen, Ole C, 312 

Tc-isberg, Knut H., 248, 254 

Tellefson, Charlie C, 263 

Tellefson (Tollefson) Kjostolf, 260, 

263 
Tenold, Ole O., 273 
Tenold, Ole P., 274 
Tesman, Hans, 192 
Tesnian, Peter, 192 
Tesman, William, 192 
Thomasson, Osmond, 92 
Thompson, Gulleik, see Saue 
Thompson, Hans, 290 
Thompson, Helge, 159 



'IMuinipson, John, 341 

Thompson, K 

Tlionipsoii, Nels, 296 

Thompson, Paul, 360 

'i'honipson, Sara, 58 

Thompson, Thomas, 290 

Thompson, Thomas A., 96, 114 

Thompson, T. G., 234 

Thompson, Tore, 203 

Thompson, Oien, 47, 54 

Thorgrimson, Jacob 

Thornton, Ben, 360 

Thorson (Thompson), Nels, 45, 55, 

56, 59, 62 
Thorson, Paul, 373 
Thorstad, Anne, 260 
Thronson, Nils, 371 
Tliun, John, 369 
Tistele, Ole, 273 
Tollefsjord, John. 120 
Tollefsjord, Ole, 120 
Tollefson, Anna, 208 
Tollefson, Gunnuf, 344 
Tollefson, Hans, 338 
Tollefson, Ole, 344 
Tollefson, Syvert, 147 
Tollefson, T5nm-s, 204, 208 
ToUefsrude, Christian IT., 70 
Tolkfsrude, Christopher 11., 302 
ToUefsrude, Halgrim L 
ToUefsrude, Hans C, 70, 213, 215 
ToUefsrude, Hans H., 302 
ToUefsrude, Hovel, 302 
ToUefsrude, Johannes H., 302 
ToUefsrude, Ole Monson. 302, 303 
ToUefsrude-Ballandby, ToUef, 217 
Torblaa, Lars, 234 
Torgerson, Ole, 347. 348, 349 
Torger.son, Peder, 286 
Torison, Halstein, 94, 231, 234, 357 
Torison, Torris, 357 
Torstenson, Jacob. 301 
Torstensen, Niels, 335 
Torstenson, Ole, 301 
Torstenson, Torsten, 301 
Tostenson, Ole, 371 
Torvold, Anders O., 276 
Traim. Kjetil, 272 
Traim, Knut, 272 
Traim, Ole, 272 



406 



NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION 



Traim, Thov K., 272 

Train, Ole O., 208 

Trovatten, Ole K., 81, 82, 83, 85, 

243, 252, 269 
Trostem, Ilenrik H., 217 
'irosteni, Ingeborg, 217 
Trostem, Knud, 217 
Tufte, Hermund N., see Hertno 

Nilson 
Tufte, Nels, see Nilson 
Tufte, Sven, 129 
Turkop, Halvor E., 366 
Tutland, Osmond, 356 
Tuttle, Albert, 137 
Tuttle, Charles, 137 
Tuttle, Henry, 137 
Tvedt, Torger T., 342 
Tveit, Christen J., 293 
Tveito, Gunnar, 234 
Tveito. Hans, 281, 282 
Tverberg, Hans P., 249, 250 
Tverberg, John P., 249 
Tveten, Knut G., 338 
Tygum, Ingebrigt L., 332 
Tyrebakken, Knut G., 218 
Tysland, Knut K., 355 
Tyvang, Glus P., 260 
T.xrum, Jens T., 307 
Ta-rum, Torger J., 307 
Tcimmerstigen, Anders J., 224 
Tommerstigen, Johannes, 312 
Tommerstigen, Olive, 312 
Tommerstigen, Peter, 312 

Uhlen, Hans, 220, 298 

Ullebsr, Tostein, 261 

Ullensager, Askild, 213 

Ulsak, Aslak, 217 

Ulven, Sjur, 199. 200, 201. 233 

Unde, Britha, 202 

Unde, Krik, 202 

Unde, Ole, 154, 202, 265 

Unde, Peder J., 153, 199, 200, 201, 

222, 233, 265 
Unonius, Gustav, 297 
Urland, Arne, 152 

Vala, Gunder H., 293 
Valder, Hans, 96, 114 



V'ale, Anders, 300 

Vale, Arve G., 293 

Vale, Hans A., see Ilans Arveson 

Vale, John, 291, 300 

Vale, Ole J., 291, 300 

Valkaasa, Halvor, 294 

Valle, Lars, 364 

Valle, Ole, 363 

Valle, Ole H., 143, 363 

Valle, Sigrid P., 133 

Valoen, Peder H., 338 

Vambheim, Nils, 234 

Van der Bilt, Jan A., 37 

Vandcrbilt, Commodore. i7 

\'an der VVeir, Jacob, 42 

Vange, Ingebrigt N., 273 

Vange, Ole, 273 

Vangen, Anna Marie H., 307 

Vangen, Ivar H., 266, 306, 338 

Vangsness, Sjur S., 333 

\'an Sant, Claes, 36 

Vasberg, Bjorn T., 251 

X'atuame, Helge, 92 

Ve, Ole T., 218 

Vedfald, Gunder, 207, 209 

Vedfald, Olav, 209 

Vee, Herman T., 305 

Vegli, Nils O., 206 

Vehus, Jens P., 185 

Venaas, Gisle, 271 

Veste, Thorbjorn, 100 

Vestreim, Kolbcin, 182 

Vestremo, Christian L,., 300 

Vctlahuso, Anna, 44 

Vetti, Anders K., 359 

Vibito, Jorgen A. Nilson, 293 

Vik, Anders, see Week 

Vik, Anne, 348 

Vik, Guttorm T., 246 

Vik, Johan, see Week 

Vik, Torbjorn G., 246, 283 

Vikje, Nils, 182 

Vindedal, Josef J., 307 

Vindeig, Gunnul O., 172, 174, 177, 

180, 185, 189, 256 
Vindeig, Helleik, 180, 181 
Vindeig, Knud O., 179, 180 
Vinje, y\rne Anderson, 151, 199, 200, 

201, 203, 233, 304 
Vinje, Martha, 151 



INDEX 



407 



\'old, John, in 
\>gli. Nils O., 143 
N'.xrlinug, Hans, 215 
Vicrkcn, Ole A., 267 
\';cte, l-:ii K., 264 
\ ,Tte, Ilalle, 100 
\ .Ttcrnil, Knud R., 208 

Wagley, see Vegli 

Uait, Guro, 287 

Wait, Reuben, 287 

Waller, Iver, 90 

Waller, Tollef, 298 

Warner, H. L., 137 

Warner, Milton S., 137 

Washington, George, 42 

Weaver, Griswold, 137 

Week, Andrew, 198, 199, 234, 350 

Week, John O., 198, 199, 234, 350 

Weeks, Wier S., 356, 357 

Wennes, Peder, 373 

Wheeler, John, 167, 249 

Wigeland, Andrew, 281 

Wigeland, Arentz, 281, 282 

Wigeland, G. A., 235 



Wikko, Nils O., 218 
Willerup, C. I?., 78 
William, Hans, 193 
Williams, Mrs. Julia K., 1 
Wilson, Edwin O., 207 
Wing, John, 360 
Wittenberg, Jens, 39 
Wold, Syvver, 366 
Wright, John, 151 

Vgre, Lars, 150 
YtrebGe, Ole H., 188 
Ytreli, Erik J., 307, 308 
Ytreli, Iver I.. 307, 308 

Odegaard, Anders S., 305 
Odegaarden, Gunhild, 139, 
(Jdegaarden, Jori, 144 
Odvin, Peter L., 334 
Oie, Erik, 192 
Oien, Tollef O., 287 
Oiesoen, Ole, 192 
Olman, Sjur S., 268. 270 
tisterbro, Mikkel K., 307 
Ovrebo, Anders S., 305 



146, 206 



